The Sea Gypsy

Source: Lenaah's Flickr

A friend of mine came across this poem by Richard Hovey ,originally published sometime in the late 19th century, in a book of children's poetry from the forties, and she wrote it down. She read it aloud to me and I immediately had to write it down. There's something about it that catches me, and enthralls me. Its supposed to be about the ocean, but its lustful, passionate, more like a love poem, and I understand.

I am fevered with the sunset,

I am fretful with the bay,

for the wander thirst is on me

and my soul is in Cathay.

*

There's a schooner in the offing,

with her topsails shot with fire,

and my heart has gone aboard her

for the Islands of Desire.

*

I must forth again tomorrow! 

With the sunset I must be,

hull down on the trail of rapture

in the wander of the Sea.

Welcome to the OC, Bitch

Lately, all I want to do is read. I want to find a nice cafe somewhere, and sit there all day and read a stack of books, just switch to a different one whenever I feel like it. No one calling me, no distractions, no people I need to see, just happily flipping through page after page of a towering stack of books on every imaginable subject.

I have the books, and I have the cafe, but then things start going downhill. Back in San Francisco, there was always someone who wanted to see me, or something I had to take care of before I moved back home (yeah, its pitiful) or work at 5 in the morning or or or...and I never really did get to read all those books I'd collected.

Now I'm back in Newport (cue tears and ululating) and I have EIGHT people in my house, with a two year old in the mix who seems to have a radar for people who don't want to play with her, parents who are dead set on harassing me "for my own good" so I don't "stagnate", and four other children. Oh, and my uncle is coming to stay for a week in a few days. Kill me now. 

I just want to READ damn it. Can't everyone just leave me ALONE? I promise, I'll do everything else, just give me a few days to myself. There's so much happening all the time. 

At least Kate Moss is serene, although I'd quite like to change her choice of reading material.