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Poetry always provides solutions and idenitifications. I wish I'd written this:

Long time he lay upon the sunny hill,
To his father's house below securely bound.
Far off the silent, changing sound was still,
With the black islands lying thick around.

He saw each separate height, each vaguer hue,
Where the massed islands rolled in mists away,
And though all ran together in his view
He knew that unseen straits between them lay.

Often he wondered what new shores were there.
in thought he saw the still light on the sand,
The shallow water clear in tranquil air,
And walked through it in joy from strand to strand.

Over the sound a ship so slow would pass
That in the black hill's gloom it seemed to lie.
The evening sound was smooth like sunken glass
And time seemed finished ere the ship passed by.

Grey tiny rocks slept round him where he lay,
Moveless as they, more still as evening came,
The grasses threw straight shadows far away,
And from the house his mother called his name.
Childhood, Edwin Muir.

My favourite poem of the moment. It reminds me why I'm going home. Funny how readers can identify so clearly with experiences of people that are totally unknown to them. I think that's the brilliant thing about the reader/writer relationship - you can't be strangers. Specially with poetry. Thats it isn't it - looking for affirmation from outside sources for your existence. Thats why reading is so good - you can always find people that think in a similar way and reflect on similar kinds of mental processes that you do. Read Edwin Muir - he's brilliant.