"Poetry arrived in search of me." Pablo Neruda

And on the subject of books finding you - rather than the other way around - it's always worth having a clear out, isn't it? You always find something to keep, rather than throw.......once I spent a whole day with my ageing father 'having a clear out'. We shifted and sorted memorabilia from one battered old trunk into another, throwing nothing away, but sharing all those experiences. Very happy memories...

Anyway - back to the current clear out - in a box under the bed, I came across a book of Pablo Neruda's Love poetry from that beautiful film 'Il Postino' - this one called Poetry (La Poesia) brilliantly translated by Alastair Reid.

Often first lines linger in the memory throughout the day.....here they are:

"And it was at that age....Poetry arrived

in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where

it came from, from winter or a river.

I don't know how or when,

no, they were not voices, they were not

words, nor silence,

but from a street I was summoned,

from the branches of the night,

abruptly from the others,

among violent fires

or returning alone,

there I was without a face

and it touched me."

There are a few more verses ...............