High Cloudlets and other stories

There is somewhere a picture of me in the bus stop at Adlestrop where they have the sign from the old railway station platform and the poem on a plaque on the bench. But the phrase, 'high cloudlets' came to mind looking up onto my own bit of sky yesterday and so the occasional series of photographs that suggest poems continues.

It is the view I get when looking away from my reading matter when outside. As a  supporter, but not member, of the Cloud Appreciation Society, it is often of interest and one can feel the same thought every time as aeroplanes make their way to or from Gatwick (I expect), that I'm glad it's not me up there but it's their choice so maybe they like it.

But yesterday was idyllic without me being as much a fan of summer weather as I was in the 1980's. A walk out to Milton Lock with some informed turf chat followed by a couple of hours with the latest book taken from the stockpile of recent purchases was simply as good as it gets and I've not felt as good for years as a result. It must be the Vitamin D.

The book at the moment is Claire Tomalin's Thomas Hardy, the Time-Torn Man, which I should have read years ago, intended to but didn't until now. It is, surely, one of the best books I've ever read. It qualifies on all the criteria that such
a high accolade might be decided on such as (necessarily) its subject matter but also the writing, how it works 'as a book' and, most crucially, how much one enjoys reading it. It's hard to imagine anything being more enjoyable than reading this. It prompts me to think about the 'Best Book in the House' idea, which might need to be more of a Top 20 than a Top 6 and probably done in genres first. But we will see. There's 3 x Balzac, 2 x Gogol, Anna Karenina and Laura Cumming on Velasquez lined up before Ivor Gurney arrives and, for all rejoicing, there is live concert music to look forward to in Chichester in early July, so one might look back fondly on lockdown as a time when there was nothing else to do.

--

I had been haunted by the phrase from a poem, 'we are astronomy', wondered where it came from and thought it might be me. It was but I was mis-remembering myself. 

It's from Horror in The Perfect Book,

The madness dispersing inside 

us is astronomy and, for all 

we know, the next cupboard or door

opened will reveal Vincent  Price,

the music that you love to dread

or all your nightmares come at once,

 

I still quite like it but am less sure about it now. It ought to evoke more than vastness and it might be a bit vague about that. Perhaps one day I will reassess myself and find that, actually, once I've put a line through all those poems I have doubts about, the Collected Poems will be a pamphlet of about a dozen.

While having all the virtue-signalling of frugality and self-criticism it might also be an ironic masterpiece to collect so few and possibly even send out that message to others.

If we saw only the very best work that poets did, we might appreciate the poetry more than the poet.

--

Coming soon, the most expedited of deliveries of a most wonderful new disc of Buxtehude, Schutz and Dijkman arrived conveniently before I went out today. It is just one more thing to look forward to in a packed programme.

It is a great thing that some people have so very little to complain about. It's an even better thing that I'm one of them.