When I wanted to run a home

for stray elephants, my parents

gave me a big book – Wild Animals.

 

I opened it. Smooth

semi-gloss pages

slipped and slithered

through anxious little fingers,

hundreds of heavy pages.

 

I picked it up, its heft was great,

and set it splat on a table,

leaned over and placed

my nose right there

into its folded down wings,

closed my eyes,

eased into the jungle,

into a mystery

that has never left me.

 

I know all the aromas,

I’m expert now,

all the papers, printing inks,

the surface similarities,

the differences, PH values,

antique and azure laid,

bible paper, thin, opaque,

bond or base or clay-coated,

laminate or plain, off-white,

or low opaque to minimise

the show through text.

Add cold-set

lithographic ink,

head-set, sheetset or web offset.

 

And now my son,

via Gunter Grass and Gerhard Steidl,

Robert Frank and Tony Chamber’s

Wallpaper,

has sent a birthday gift:

a bottle in a book, a book in a bottle:

 

Paper Passion – sniff me!