Wait, where are my books?

So now I have moved. My books have too, but not to the same place. They currently reside in boxes in a friend's garage. Why is it that my books have been within arms' reach for years and I barely seemed to need any of them, but now that they reside in boxes in the garage of friends, I'm suddenly missing them terribly?

First, I finished my current book (The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo, well worth a read) in the middle of the night and realized I failed to pack a single emergency book for my move. There are at least eighty-seven books in those boxes that I've been wanting to read for years. Thank goodness for Benjamin Franklin and his 1731 Library Company of Philadelphia.

Secondly, I have discovered a sudden need to quote from poets whose collections are now, well, you know where they are. I never realized that I sought out random quotes from obscure poems quite so frequently in my life. Do I need to get out more?

This Saturday, I will be reading from What Just Happened at the Los Gatos Listowel Writers' Festival. Apparently, Los Gatos is a sister city of Listowel. Who knew? Not to be outdone by their Irish sister, they have decided to put on their own Writers' Week. I'm reading at Village Books at noon on Saturday. Check out the festival program here, it looks like a lot of fun: http://writersweeklosgatos.com/

Here's a poem I will be reading.

What We Seek

We were dancing when the ground opened up,

the sky opened up, the world was cold space,

the sun slipped into the sea.

We were singing when the wind came up

and with it the trees—they rose in the air,

there were limbs down everywhere.

Halfway across the distance between me and you

a wall came up. You searched for a door,

a way through.

On my side I rallied, I found joy,

sparked it up from two sticks.

I discovered my words were words of burning

they caught from one another

the fire of longing, of despair,

they sent their flames far up into the air.

I risked their spreading, I let them,

it was heady, crossing early and quickly

from silent fear to conflagration.

Thus was I deep into oration when the wall

fell. Suddenly tired of all the conjuring

I watched the flames get sucked into the sand.

It was dark when I began to climb,

hand over hand,

the sea below, pacing back and forth.

A blue moon barely lit my path,

the birds wheeled, ready,

salt stung my eyes.

I reached the peak,

insatiable hunger, unquenchable thirst.

Knowing I was not the first

to consider launching myself

from such a height

I closed my eyes, felt for true north

the secret heart of all things,

and willed the red glimmer

of dawn to the tips of my wings.