Pied Beauty

It is a lovely Sunday morning and I've already been up for hours! The sun is streaming through the windows, the crisp morning air is filtering through the screen doors, the birds are chirping outside, and there's a batch of blueberry French Toast baking in the oven. The sweet smells of cinnamon and vanilla waft gently into the living room and mix with the aroma of freshly laid bark mulch.

I still have a lot of projects to do today, but I am eager to get outside again. I spent the majority of my day weeding and spreading bark mulch, so I am excited to dig into planting today. When I walked out to collect the newspaper this morning, I was reminded of a lovely poem that one of my favorite English teachers (thanks Ms. Jencks!) presented to my class many, many years ago.

It seems like a perfect morning for Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;

Landscapes plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise Him.