Tag: prose

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Into The Woods

My favorite walk

photo by author last summer

When I feel a bit stressed or just have itchy feet, I love to go to the ancient woodland along the harbour.

Half the journey is getting there. I see birds, both waterbirds and the common or garden variety.

The scent of the harbor is the first awareness. The salt air refreshes the senses as if cleansing the pallet. Then wild orchids appear along with other plants and small shrubs. Buttercups, wild geraniums, flax, and blossom from brambles.

Then butterflies and bees and wasps make themselves visible, teasing as they alight and fly away, returning and repeating their dance of flight. Cyclists pass, it is all good natured, and time of day is passed with other walkers.

The reed beds come into sight. I see gulls actually diving for fish instead of eating dropped human food in the town. Swans and ducks glide through the apparent stillness.

Trees approach. I feel a relief, as if all my cares will be lifted by the boughs and leaves gently whisper their energy to me, softly, on the breeze. I go into the green embrace of ancient woods with gnarled trunks and thick roots. I wonder at the mycelium that created this wonder. Trees be. They are living and talking to each other. They feed the needy ones and choose where a sapling will sprout.

The green is soothing. My soul finds nourishment. My eyes rest on twisted branches where moths rest, look closely and maybe there is a bat. All is alive, even dying logs are teeming with life as beetles start the decaying process. I feel embraced and sheltered in the tunnels of green. Sounds of birds are music for the cathedral-like trees, majestic and strong.

Strange entanglements of wood and ferns and undergrowth. Sunlight is dappled through the canopy of green. It is peace and joy both at once. Uplifting but full of awe.

Gradually, I come out to meadow and must leave other paths unexplored until another day.

Published in Weeds and Flowers

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Happyment

A poem

Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash

I know peace, joy, happiness. My life is full. Raising a beautiful daughter who shines. I watch the harbor, yachts tacking back and forth. The water shines as though the sun has cast glitter over it.

I wake to birdsong. How cheerful they are as they greet the new day. I feed them and enjoy how they feast. They bathe in dew, and my bird bath.

I have poor health but am delighted with my life. My work has always been my passion, so fulfilling. I speak three languages and English is not my mother tongue.

I am loved by many and love in return. I agape my friends and the man in my home. I smile and feel friendly to the world.

I have given and been given to. I am blessed to bestow kindness to others. My cup runneth over. I love my God. I am not rich, but I have great wealth.

Published in The Lark

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In My Garden

I just planted a lime mint. It’s tiny but has roots. It has a good-sized pot to grow and fill. I never heard of lime mint before. Just mint.
I’m in the process of planting wild geranium. I say that, as it is in a pot, but not yet fully filled with soil. It was well-watered.

I do love it when a friend brings a plant.?Bonding a deeper friendship over the scent of soil each time.?I get renewed through plants and my garden in general. In my garden, it’s peaceful and secluded. With a friend or on my own, I have my own little woodland area and flowers all around. When I hear anger or gossip, which I detest, I go into my garden. Or like yesterday, exposed to cruel words which were none of the tellers business, I went to our huge park. So green, so wooded.

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Christmas Season

Take a pound of goodwill and mix it with cheer, take numberless acts of random kindness, wrapped all together in a smile. Check on your neighbors, get their shopping, drop some coins in the box for charity.

Smile at each person that you pass, give up your seat on the bus. Make extra food to put on plates for those who have no one to see. There’s always room for more people at home.

Play the season’s songs or hum them, wrap gifts with love and a kiss, let the children decorate the tree with handmade baubles, and silver chains. Their friends can help them too. Place extra gifts for those you don’t expect to meet.

Take candy to work, and fix the elderly woman’s shelf, make sure all your neighbours fairy lights work.

Drop a card through the letterbox of the neighbour who shouted at you, send a text to the friend who was cross for no reason, goodwill?—?that’s what it means.

Sit down last at the table, having filled plates. Thank God for his goodness and pass it along. Let kindness and compliments be true from your lips.

Visit the unwell with a plate of hot food. Make sure none you know of are lonely, if you can spare half an hour.

Let the children sing, let them laugh and play. Go to bed knowing you can help others be happy, it just takes a tick. Wake, and be ready to do it all again.

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The beauty of a fig…

If the serpent ever tempted Eve whilst Adam was snoozing, I firmly believe it was not with an apple. A mere apple could not have caused her such pleasure that she would need to share its taste with her man.

There are fruits that are far more tasty and tempting than apples. Mango, persimmon, these come to mind but the most pleasing and delicious of all is the fig.

It hangs on the tree, so easy to pick. Its skin makes a natural wrap around all that sweet, moist, goodness. The juice does not run, there is no mess at all.

Look at its beauty within. It resembles the opening of a vagina. I have never seen a vagina except in art or diagrams, but I consider it to be beautiful because of its purposes. The vagina is strong and muscular, it expands and narrows to give birth and pleasure.

The patterns within the fig bring to mind muscles that can clamp a penis, giving pleasure to a man, and expand to expel a baby.

I have found immense pleasure in figs this summer. My tree, like my cousin’s, has borne ripe fruit. How perfect, how luscious, how refreshing is a fig. How superbly designed. It is sensual, fragrant, and irresistible. I find myself telling everyone about my figs.

Never again will I eat a dried one or a shop bought one. They are considerate to ripen in turn so that none get spoilt. I have often glutted on fig jam when in Africa, here it is not the same.

Fresh figs will delight me for all my days now. And be the shared temptation with my man. The sensuality is visceral and inexplicable. No apple can do this. Other fruits are too messy.

Eve tasted a fig…She was seduced by it and had to share the joy.