the world is so full

“To talk of many things:

Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–

Of cabbages–and kings–

And why the sea is boiling hot–

And whether pigs have wings.”

-Lewis Carroll

…which didn’t quite describe what I saw and loved. Or this…

“Tree, and tree-tufted hedge-row, and sparkling between

Dewy meadows enameled in gold and in green,

With king-cups and daisies which all the year please,”

-S.T. Coleridge

…which wasn’t nearly comprehensive enough (tho’ I shall use it for my hedgerow
post, you can be sure!). I turned, in the end, to Robert Louis Stevenson.

“The world is so full of a number of things,

I ’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.”

That will about cover it, and I can make up my own categories

….like “kitchens” and “cakes” and “hedgrows” and “garlands”.

It will do me good to write and share about it, for I have

still been languishing a bit, in this Virginian heat.

Just a few minutes ago, tho’, I took a quick walk

in the storm-lit dusk. The sky was a deep grey patchwork

of small clouds…I saw a bluebird fly out of the white house

on the fence-post, over our shaggy field of asters and Queen

Anne’s Lace…and a cool wind made the orange

day-lilies dance.

Perhaps, after all, there are a “number of things”

close to home to bring happiness. In fact, I am

sure of it.