A gift of a spring snowfall

Blue Grapes by Tess Gallagher from Moon Crossing Bridge (Gray Wolf Press)
Eating blue grapes
          near the window
     and looking out
          at the snow-covered valley.
For a moment, the deep world
          gazing back.  Then a blue jay
     scatters snow from a bough.
No world, no meeting.  Only
          tremors, sweetness
                             on the tongue.


I thought about this poem when I woke up this morning to a snow covered yard.  Unfortunately I didn't have any blue grapes in the house so I had to settle for a cup of tea in a blue mug to compliment the view out my window.  Still, it was an opportunity to simply be in the moment, to feel the heat seeping through the pottery as my hand curved around the cup, to watch how the snowflakes looked as if they were being sifted from the heavens.  Who can complain about snow in spring when it offers such gifts?

Wishing I could arise and go . . .

LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE by William Butler Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.


I've been craving some slow dropping peace lately.  I have this ongoing fantasy of escaping to a tiny cabin in the middle of the wintry woods or a cozy cottage nestled among snow covered mountains.  I want to go to a place where silence settles like a blanket and I can spend endless hours reading and writing with the only interruptions coming from the need to warm my cup of tea or put another log on the fire. 

To fodder my fantasy I started surfing the web for images of snow covered landscapes and discovered this website, very aptly named.  There are 55 pages of cabins (alas, only some photographed in the snow) so there's sure to be something to appeal to every solitude seeker in their collection.  I'm kind of fond of this little gem . . . a perfect place to enjoy a second breakfast!

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit . . . "