Story: 5. ) Shipboard Reading / from A BOOK IS LIKE A SACRED ISLE: A Rain of Booklight; A book about books

 Shipboard Reading    

   Shipboard reading was sparsely spread between shipboard chores; there was always so much to be done and there were few spaces left in the day for ‘doing nothing;’ (which is what reading was considered to be during our days at anchor in the little coves and bays of the islands of the seas.) Of course, one occasionally read the pilot books – seamen’s instruction books concerning the waters one sailed in – if one didn’t want to be shipwrecked, that is! But when there was time in the evening and kerosene to spare I could fill the cabin’s gimbaled lamps and read and escape.  With no engine, no battery, no electronics, on board our tiny ocean going sailing yacht, there was no power, of course for books in dimensions other than paper and cardboard. And we were none the worse for it; except when we were shipwrecked off the Sahara Desert – (we hadn't read the pilot book for that area!) – for we couldn’t contact anyone to come and rescue us!
   But in easy going days when we were at sea I could sometimes tie up the tiller, get her self-steering by the set of her sails, and bring out a book and read to my heart’s content in daylight hours – with one eye open, for a look out at the ocean ahead, of course. You never knew what might be there: a basking shark, a whale, a ship, or another yacht; (or the Sahara Desert!)  Lying in the sun listening to the song of the sea creaming past us, the reflecting water, glinting its own story of the sky, the skimming fulmars and shearwaters the near-land cry of the wheeling seagulls, I could read and dream and not get seasick. Wonderful books were read this way! Their excellent worth made evident; for they quickly bore a much-loved look; caught by the sea spray when we crashed into a wave they flew off the cockpit seat into the scuppers and got wet. But, unlike electronic books, (except those in watertight cases, I suppose?) they survived the ordeal and lived to see another day at sea decorating our shipboard bookshelf, which told a tale in itself, of who we were and how we lived, and what we liked.
   Shipboard reading was great! An escape upon escape! 

 

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Story: 1. ) Compassion / from A BOOK IS LIKE A SACRED ISLE: A Rain of Booklight; A Book about Books...

        

       
         Compassion 

  I have just finished reading a book, a biography, about a famous writer and author whose checkered life, at first, filled me with dismay, and at times I wondered what on earth I was doing reading a book about such a perverse character. But I continued to read, fascinated. The more I read, the more his life was revealed to be truly weird and even repulsive in places, but his writing was utterly beautiful; astonishingly fine English. But the more I read the more I discovered compassion being worked in me, and genuine love for this troubled and tormented man. Towards the end, at the description of his dreadful death, I cried; and I was sad that the book had come to an end and there was no more to read of this utterly complex ‘nearly-great, but fatally flawed man.’    I realized the experience of reading this book had been important in my life. It had taught me not to be afraid of coming into contact with things I consider ‘strange.’ I saw that the good in a person would always balance out, even cancel out, for me at least, all the bad in them; further, the complex contrast made their good aspects, truly shine; just as stars shine only in a black sky.
  Through reading this book I recognized that there were preconceived opinions in me, and that I didn’t like them, and I didn’t want them in my life. The book’s effect on me was that I was taught more passionately, not to prejudge, anything.
  I realize now how very deeply I wanted to be rid of judgmental opinions, and to have a pure heart that found no cause for the rejection of any fault in any person.
  What treasure I would have missed out on had I not persevered, and read this wonderful book! Never let me be afraid of a challenge to change!
  It is not those things we want to know that help us the most and reveal what we’re after, but those we don’t want to know and turn from:  the real treasure was where we hadn't looked for it before!

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This is the first anecdote for Part 3:  the prose section of:  A BOOK IS LIKE A SACRED ISLE; A Rain of Booklight:  a book about books; by Judith Evans Deverell.  Scroll forward for the next anecdote in this prose section of the book. There will be approximately 20 anecdotal sketches in this section.

A Book is like a hopeful Rainbow

A book is like a hopeful rainbow 

I take a turn and look around

And there a promise arc 

Of sudden colour:  . . .

Hope falling by me 

Through its gifted pages

Holding light for me 

As though through fire in rain

Its spirit streams are in 

Seven colours split

Its story, message, 

Its hope-filled teachings

All prismed light 

Caught alive in me:  . . .

Since first I glimpsed 

Its intriguing cover 

Quickly guessed in me 

Its depth, of hidden promise  

Poem from a Sequence:

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 23

© Judith M. Evans Deverell, 2014

The Bookmark Project

(Poetry/ Vol. 1. ) A Pearl Feather

If found a gift

If found a gift this thorn in flesh

Then life’s glory was for ever

My turning thing, the thing I treasured

Then joy and a pearl feather

If beginning in water and ending in wine

In the midst and all the way through divine

Then was the wind wine, the wine rain:

The writings of an only daughter

If found of love in being made of love

And in the thick never more or less

Then this, my river and my ink my breath: 

All cradled life and a pearled feather

Jewelled Runnings

Whirring of wings and bright things passing by

Pictures in shivers of fast beating hearts

Taking in the hill song, harvests of the swiftlight

Pouring through the passes of a new silvered thought

Jeweled runnings in the gladness and gifts passing by

Glimpses in shakings of sharp drawn-in breaths

Calling in the fit hurt extendings of the love~gold

Dancing through the dappled light of a new understanding

Pressings of rain and love’s weight passing by

Whispers in quivers of tight held arrows

Bringing in my sorrows pipings of the answer

Flowing through the capture of a new comprehending

For where were all the set lights, if the rain didn't come? 

And the coming of the best part, if the least bit wasn't seen?  

Could you grasp its fleeting glimpse, if its point’s left out?

Or retrieve a lost forsaking, to find a silvered treasure?