Fire and Smoke of the Soul

I.

The first time I tried reading John Cowper Powys was during the summer of 2019. I had just moved from one apartment to another (right across the stone courtyard of the complex) and everything smelled of dust; nothing, not the coffee maker nor my books nor my furniture, had found its right place, all was in a state of flux, and yet things were preternaturally pleasant: it was an easy move that took a single day of walking over armfuls of belongings, and the weather was perfect, rainy, warm, sunny and cool by turns.