24 January 2017

The Hut at the Shire

We have a hut in the wood, not many know its whereabouts, with cherry trees which blossom nearby and in winter the fruit of the highbush cranberries red in the snow.  Two cedar door posts for support, and a lintel of oak.  The roof covered with earth grows squash in the summer.  A little hidden lowly hut which owns the path filled forest.

Trees of apples of great bounty; seemly crops of small-nutted branching green hazels growing in clusters like a fist. 

Excellent water gushing forth from hand pumped wells, a cup of water splendid to drink.  Tall deer, does, wild turkeys abound.  Foxes come to the wood before it, all is delightful. 

The songs of the many hued warblers, the carol of the thrush, pleasant and familiar about the hut.  A nimble singer, the combative brown wren from the hazel bow, woodpeckers with their pied hoods in vast host.

Fair white birds come, cranes,  swans, pelicans, the lakes and fields sing to them...the mellow plain, delightful and smooth. 

The voice of the wind against the branched woods, grey with cloud; cascades of the river, the trumpeting is lovely music.

Beautiful pines serenade us, they are not hired; I fare no worse at any time than do you.

Though you delight in your own enjoyments, greater than all wealth, for my part I am grateful for what is given to us through Mother Earth.

Without an hour of quarrel, without the noise of strife which disturbs much of the world, grateful to the Mother who gives every good to us in our hut.

(paraphrased from memories of an old Irish tale of centuries ago)

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