The Why of Hay-On-Wye

A childhood stop at the book dealer kingdom of Hay-On-Wye
meant I spent my pot of pennies on an unexpected book:
a manifesto by a German foreign minister,
a Von Bulow of 1907, a count or something like.

I was asked at the time: but why, lad, did you select that?
--rather than (clearly implying) something zingier, something
more relevant, in fashion, something more suited to my age.
I didn't know, I admitted. And no, I didn't read it---

just like so many later, worthier and weightier tomes
that gathered dust while lobbying at the court beside my bed.
I keep it in the best bookcase. Not for reading, not ever,
but as the frontispieced foreign minister of the never-read.

Seth Crook