Browsing the Bookshelves

I've had more emails from friends - old and new - today that I have in many a week. That should be a good thing. It is.  But somehow it has left me feeling a little low. Emails seem so cold and impersonal at times. It would be good to see people for real. Some are many hundreds of miles away; most a few hundred.  How come I live in one of the biggest cities in the world and yet most of oldest and dearest friends are so far away? I miss them, each and everyone.  But even those who are just a few miles down the road seem very far away at times.

And late at night I think of home, of how the golden fields will be swaying in the cool evening breeze, of the smell of damp grass and misty reeds.  The grand oak which filled my bedroom window with its 17 foot girth. The redwood pine which my Aunt brought back from Canada when it was about an inch tall now towers over that oak.  The horses will be asleep but if you were to walk pass them you'd catch that wonderfully rich smell of horse, friend and sweet sweat which takes me right back to childhood. I can picture the inky-black sky, crisp as glassine, with pin-prick stars dazzling. I know just how it would be to walk home late at night. I know just how cold the earth would be and just how the corn would crackle under my feet. I know every step along the last lane, approaching the farmhouse. I know where to put my feet on the verge to avoid the pit-holes and ditches. I know where to find the gap in the hedge to cut 500 yards off the trek up the hill, and just how low I'd have to duck to avoid getting brambles in my hair. I know where to find to sweetest blackberries - the ones know else ever finds. So why am here and not there?

If any one is interesting, this is where home is:

The Wood

Empty, isn't it?