Texas Library & Archives

In a fortnight, or a paksha (Sanskrit for half a lunar month Wikipedia tells me), the movers arrive.  I have packed twenty-four boxes so far; fourteen of them are full of books. Sorting, shredding, bubblewrapping and taping it all up, I feel like a turtle whose home is far bigger than its body might need.  At one point I found a torn back cover of a paperback on the floor.  J.R.R. Tolkien smiled up at me, and I thought of hobbit holes.

Of course, when Bilbo Baggins went on an adventure, he threw a birthday party and ostentatiously disappeared.  How cozy were those hobbit holes and elven treehouses, perfect for taking tea and reading, or in the latter, gazing at the stars.

After much debate, I’ll take a table, an overstuffed chair, and a lamp.  I wish that were all, because on the page, it is so perfectly adequate.  But there’s the bed, the bookshelves, a desk, and another lamp.  Plus forty-four boxes.

Rivendell by Tolkien

This poem arrived in my email today, via Ivan M. Granger’s wonderful Poetry Chaikhana site: http://www.Poetry-Chaikhana.com/:

A nightingale’s songBy Ryokan (1758 – 1831)English version by John Stevens A nightingale’s song Brings me out of a dream: The morning glows.

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“Ode to the Nightingale” by john Keats