Tragedies and Such Beauties

Today found me in midtown for a lunch meeting and, with twenty minutes to spare, I decided to take a quick look see at the new exhibition "Shelley's Ghost" at the New York Public Library, which I had been meaning to go at some point but for one reason or another had not.  It turned out to be a splendid affair, artfully arranged in that small side gallery of theirs, and even before I went in, my heart was broken a little (and then a lot) when I realized that I could not take photographs inside. Surely, taking photographs is a kind of poison, in that one does not concentrate on the experience and is sidetracked by the desire to possess an image (or many images) of something which cannot (and should probably not) be possessed- and because of the prohibition, I was able to dive deep into the magnificent artifacts on display.

Really, it was one after another in terms of startling literary items- among the highlights for me on this preliminary walk through was a handwritten version of the poem "Ozymandias" (with a funny description by the curators that it was memorized by many a schoolchild), the death ring of dear Lord Byron and even pieces of Shelley's skull!  The most sad and mysterious, though, was the water damaged (of course, as Shelley had drowned) book containing the collected plays of Sophocles, which is said to be with Shelley when he died (and which also contains his thumb mark in the corner from holding/reading it)-

Often, I do wonder about the passage of time, and think again my own affinity for writers- imagining how my life on the sidelines could have been without reading and writing for so many years, and these moments now of gasping for air and the hunger of reading again, ever more.

an image of the book that sank with Shelley, from the catalogue.

the cold marble of the library/imagining the waves that sounded doom