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Thursday, May 8, 2014

Paradise Found

Took a walk around in the fragrant, fresh cut grass here in my little corner of the world.
My place seems to me to be far removed from everything. As I walk, look and smell my reality here in the now, it's easy to forget that there is anything else, only this.
At one end of the property, the north/eastern corner, the predominate sound that can be heard is the rustling that the wind creates as it pushes through the leaf laden trees lining the hilltop across my narrow two lane country road. Then there is the intermittent call of a bird, and then another answers from some other location.
The sun burns hot on the top of my head and upon my bare arms as my eyes span around the expansive landscape and out to the horizon where fat, bumbling carpenter bees float and zip and bump into one another with no apparent destination or agenda.
The grass is cool and crisp beneath my bare feet and the sky above is the color of blue that only a clear, Spring day can paint. Faint swaths of gossamer clouds decorate that blue sky and when I look away for a moment and then back again they are gone. Evaporated as if blown away by the breath of some great invisible giant.
Continuing on along the back of the house to the north western corner, I find an oasis of shade beneath the gargantuan Arborvitae trees, and there again is another swarm of awkward carpenter bees. One comes down right in front of me and hovers for a good 5 to 8 seconds before darting up and away and into the deep green foliage of the Arborvitae . At this end of the house is where the birds gather in larger numbers. My guess is it might have something to do with the feeders. I marvel that they don't seem at all bothered with the cats who also love to play and lounge here. Sometimes the cats crouch and stare at a bird for long, tense moments and as soon the hunter begins the slow creep toward it, the bird is off, flying toward the safety of a perch high in a tree or a power line, then to sing what might be a victory taunt and a dare to try again some other time.
My sense of smell catches the sweet fragrance of the honeysuckle that now engulfs the back of my little shed. Sometimes I think that maybe it needs to be cut back and cleared away but that scent would be one that I'd miss.
The tall grasses in the field below me wave to and fro with the breeze, the bees buzz, the birds sing, the cats prowl about or lay stretched out in the sun, the wind chimes charm my senses, the gravel crunches beneath the tires of occasional passing cars, a lone dog barks, the sun travels toward the West, and I am at one with it all.