Monday, May 4, 2020

Monday morning: and we're back to the 4:30 a.m. alarm that I will never get used to. But already the sky is lightening, and in the gloaming the tree silhouettes are soft with flowers and new leaves. Our weekend was so lovely--the mild, warm weather, but also our light hearts. We worked hard, as a trio, and enjoyed each other's company, and in the evening we sat on our new concrete block and drank a glass of wine together as Tom and Paul excitedly planned a canoe outing for next weekend. 

I did a big housecleaning yesterday--no windows yet, but dusting and spiderweb hunting and mopping and polishing and taking everything off the mantel and washing it, and getting rid of the vase of dried winter wheat and replacing it with fresh branches of flowering quince. I do love a tidy, airy house full of flowers.

So everything feels fresh this morning, as I prepare to sink into a week of editing/curriculum writing/manuscript reading/grocery foraging.

I am so fortunate to be happy at home.


Home

Edward Thomas (1878-1917)

Often I had gone this way before:
But now it seemed I never could be
And never had been anywhere else;
'Twas home; one nationality
We had, I and the birds that sang,
One memory.

They welcomed me. I had come back
That eve somehow from somewhere far:
The April mist, the chill, the calm,
Meant the same thing familiar
And pleasant to us, and strange too,
Yet with no bar.

The thrush on the oaktop in the lane
Sang his last song, or last but one;
And as he ended, on the elm
Another had but just begun
His last; they knew no more than I
The day was done.

Then past his dark white cottage front
A labourer went along, his tread
Slow, half with weariness, half with ease;
And, through the silence, from his shed
The sound of sawing rounded all
That silence said.

1 comment:

nancy said...

So weird . . . I can't NOT be awake at 4:30!