Silver

On the way down to Yachats, we stopped in a little town called Albany to nose around in a ramshackle used bookstore called Browsers. I found a gorgeous copy of Peacock Pie, by Walter de la Mare, beautifully illustrated by Louise Brierley. We took breaks in our reading of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's history to hide away in his images of a simpler, kinder world. De la Mare's "Silver" is one of my favorites:

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and a silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.
--Walter de la Mare.

Sue seeded the meadow on Tuesday, and the rain came on Wednesday and persisted for three days. When there were breaks in the downpour, we left our books and scampered down to the sea, where molten silver seemed to have poured from the sky over buildings and rocks alike. 

We had no wifi and no cell phone signal. It was a great relief, actually.