Beloved Bookshelf

If you are like me, you have a bookshelf where treasured words slumber. Tucked side by side on dog-eared pages, these tidings of wisdom wait for life to slow its weary pace long enough to be noticed and cherished, once again. Now is the time for awakening!

 

Henry David Thoreau (Walden):

I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night.

 

Gene Stratton-Porter (The Song of the Cardinal):

O bird of wonderful plumage and human-like song! What a precious thought of divinity to create such beauty and music for our pleasure! Brave songster of the flaming coat, too proud to hide your flashing beauty, too fearless to be cautious of the many dangers that beset you, from the top of the morning we greet you, and hail you King of Birdland, at your imperious command: “See here! See here!”

 

Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass):

Sometimes I wish I could photosynthesize so that just by being, just by shimmering at the meadow’s edge or floating lazily on a pond, I could be doing the work of the world while standing silent in the sun. The shadowy hemlocks and the waving grasses are spinning out sugar molecules and passing them on to hungry mouths and mandibles all the while listening to the warblers and watching light dance on the water.

 

John Muir (The Story of my Boyhood and Youth):

With the first hints of spring came the brave little bluebirds, darling singers as blue as the best sky, and of course we all loved them. Their rich, crispy warbling is perfectly delightful, soothing and cheering, sweet and whisperingly low, Nature’s fine love touches, every note going straight home into one’s heart.

 

Lucy Maud Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables):

It was a pretty road, running along between farmsteads, with now and again a bit of balsam fir wood to drive through or a hollow where wild plums hung out their filmy bloom. The air was sweet with the breath of many apple orchards and the meadows sloped away in the distance to horizon mists of pearl and purple; while the little birds sang as if it were the one day of summer in all the year.

 

Julia Richardson (Peacock Prairie):

Most often, I flow a shallow river. But in the solitude of nature under a dazzling dome of blue surrounded by the twittery trills of birdsong and a whisper of wind through pine-scented boughs, I dip into the depths of the Milky Way.

And blossom into bliss.

 

That’s all from the Peacock Prairie bookshelf. What are some of your favorites?

Though I read and appreciate each and every comment, please understand, in order to maintain balance in my life, I do not  respond to comments. Thank you for your visit.

 

Words and photos property of Peacock Prairie