My dad read me Robinson Crusoe.
The book cost a couple of bob,
and Bob was the name of my father,
in the home and the clerical job.
Crusoe – adventure’s main crony,
the impression that alien made
making the most of the island
in his customised stockade.
Those nights of that bedroom retelling
Robinson Crusoe, the bold
with me and my dad, glad to know him
enthralled as we hauled up our gold
from the chest that my father would open:
the book he would look at and hold.
The Moomins, I share with my daughter.
We’ve room for their busy and joke.
They live in a world that is distant,
even the grumpier ‘Groke’
has its endearing features.
The creatures are all co-existent.
They get on with separate lives.
And even when there is a conflict,
the pen of the author contrives
a reasonable resolution,
at least in the stories we’ve read:
a peaceable stand-off of some sort, a remembering
that the world is never short of incredible.
If the Moomins met Robinson Crusoe,
perhaps they could help him to see
that not every threat to your world picture
is an enemy.