Solitude

November 7, 2014November 7, 2014 / Apple Hill Cottage / 16 Comments

Never one to fear solitude or think of it as lonely,

solitude

she relishes alone-time.
The flowers and trees of the nearby fields

tell her their secrets.
spruce sunset

Grateful for solitude, she turns off the radio to hear the quiet.

Water

November 5, 2014November 6, 2014 / Apple Hill Cottage / 4 Comments

I lived without running water for a decade
and now that I re-read that sentence
I can hardly believe it myself.

But it has made me forever grateful for

my morning or evening shower;
running water
filling a pasta pot with water from the sink;

and cold, clear water to drink.

*783 million people in the world do not have access to safe water. This is roughly 11 percent of the world’s population.

*An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the typical person living in a developing country slum uses in a whole day.

*12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water.

Tourists

September 23, 2014October 9, 2016 / Apple Hill Cottage / 2 Comments

This morning a group of tourists stopped by the cottage.
They were a noisy bunch,
Fluttering and chirping around the pokeberries
at the shrubby edge between
mowed and wild.

Binoculars missing from their usual spot,
I had to run around the cottage,
Fluttering and chirping,
To locate them
Hiding on a windowsill.

I didn’t take this photo: it’s from the Great Backyard Bird Count gallery. Click on the photo to see some great bird shots.

When I returned to the back porch,
there must have been twenty or more,
nervously flitting from berry to berry.
Cedar Waxwings
on their way to somewhere
stopping at our pokeberry bushes
for breakfast.
The click of the camera
frightened them
and they flew off,
tourists chattering
in an unknown beguiling language.
Pokeberries

I took my seat reverently
in the wet grass of the leafy cathedral
and waited for their reappearance;
but their stomachs were filled with purple berries
and they were off in search of the next rest stop.

A golden aura of wonder and delight remained
In the silence of the morning
my prayer ascended in the bright sky:
Gratitude
for glimpses of the unordinary
in the ordinary.

ordinary flower