The Shadow-gloom and Weight of the Sacred

I received an email a day or two ago from the shipping company. The stuff we shipped from Vienna to OKC has arrived and is sitting in storage. Unfortunately, we still don't have a home, so we can't really have our possessions delivered anywhere. I really thought we'd have a place by the time our possessions arrived in Oklahoma City, but I'm not sure why I thought that. If one thing in my life has proven true it's that my plans almost never work out.

The majority of the stuff we shipped is books. I've probably spent way too much money on books in my life, and I'm trying to cut back. When we actually do have a home, I plan on getting a library card and cutting back on my accumulation of books. In a way, I think books are a safety blanket of sorts for me. I almost always carry a book with me. Even if I know that there is no chance that I'm going to read it, I almost always have a book with me. I just feel better with a book in my hand or in my bag. I'm particularly missing my books of poetry. Right now, I'm really in a mood to read Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes. I have no idea why I shipped that book rather than carry it with me. (I do know: I'm a sentimental fool and when I moved to Vienna I carried a Hemingway book with me, so when I moved away from Vienna I carried a Hemingway book with me, which I've yet to read!) Birthday Letters was published in the late 90s just before Hughes died. Perhaps best known as the one-time husband of Sylvia Plath, Birthday Letters is his response to their relationship and many of the allegations surrounding their life together. I like Plath, but I think Hughes is by far a more superior poet. But, I also think he was a creep whose behavior and treatment of Plath no doubt contributed to her suicide.

There are few writers I've read that possess the command of language as does Ted Hughes. Ian McEwan is one. Probably Virginia Woolf. Definitely Flannery O'Connor. James Joyce (at least in The Dubliners because I don't think anyone actually reads his novels).I heard it once said that Miles Davis never wasted a note or a word on a fool (I think it was on an episode of The Sopranos, so that may be apocryphal.) I feel similarly about Ted Hughes and these other writers.

I'm also missing my Robert Frost book. I think every poem I've ever written has been a shameless attempt to plagiarize Frost's poem After Apple-picking. Hopefully soon I will I have my books, my safety blanket. I need the sense of security