Preserving Memories
A leaf between the pages of a book
A few years ago, I visited an old bookstore in the city of Kolkata, a few miles away from where I grew up and where my parents lived. I love visiting bookstores and do visit a few here in London. I enjoy browsing through the collections of books and enjoy the way that the booksellers display these wonderful old and well-used books. Every book seems to be calling out to be lifted from its shelf to be opened, to be read, appreciated and purchased, so it finds a new home, like a child in an orphanage.
Do you enjoy visiting old bookstores in your neighbourhood? Let me continue my story. As I was browsing through the books, I saw “The Collected Poems of WB Keats”. I opened the pages and saw a pressed leaf within the book, and the poem was “The Stolen Child”. The leaf was delicate and brittle and it was transparent, it looked like a ghost of its former self.
I wondered about the story behind that leaf and why was it placed so strategically in the book, on the page of “The Stolen Child”. So many stories and possibilities came to mind. Was it possible that the book was owned by someone who was abducted as a child? Could the reader of the book, have stolen a child during his or her life and did he or she read this book of poetry to the child?
I wondered what was the significance of that delicate leaf on that page. Could it have been possible, that the leaf was from a place where the reader would take the child, in the park or did the person keep it as a souvenir, for the child he or she had lost? There are so many stories and possibilities and we will never know the true reason. The leaf and every leaf kept in a book, has a story to tell, if only those pressed leaves or sometimes flowers, between the pages of a book could speak, who knows what story they may tell us?
Note: There is an affiliate link attached to the book mentioned in this article.
Now, even I am curious about the story of the pressed leaf...