Inside and Outside
Sometimes a baby garter snake or a newt is inside the house. One spring, a king snake lay across the front door. Before the cats arrived, a mouse would occasionally jump on my head while I slept during rainstorms. One midmorning I found a Northern Flicker perched in an unfinished window. Sometimes a barn swallow flutters over my heart in the early morning on a warm day. Outside, the anemones cast their spell on me each time I pass them. Outside, I lose myself in the greater whole. Inside, I clutch my mobile phone. Working against this, I go outside and gather some eggs from the hens, two mocha, one sea green. The clutching dissolves and all I feel is life, bigger than me, through me. At breakfast, I notice the barn owl has just stepped outside the circular entrance of the owl house. I swoon over the back side of the rounded head, the gold feathers. I pull the binoculars closer. The barn owl looks up now, right at me, into my house, into my binoculars, and into my subconscious where we have been all along waiting for one another. I see those black eyes adjusting from microcosm to macrocosm. I hear, not in words, a message. Clear as day.
You are most welcome! Would love to read more of your work!!
Oh Dear Sally, I have not seen you for how many years? But if reading this is seeing life through your eyes, I would very much like that life. Most people would scream if a mouse came across their head, or shudder at the site of a snake at their door. For me, I welcome this. I once came home to a black rat snake wrapped around my front door knob. With the help of a friend, we coaxed it into a bag we had set into a hamper and returned it to the front of the lake near our house, instead of killing it as some were begging us to do. I am not fond of some things like spiders and scorpions, but I do respect their purpose in life, and try my best to leave them be, but to revere and see nature the way you do is a rare thing these days...more people should try it 😊😊😊