As I sit down before my computer tonight, I have just watched a beautiful sunset.
The sky was the bluest of blue, with a sprinkling of fluffy, white clouds slowly changing pink, then red, then scarlet.
But just moments before the sun dropped entirely out of sight, for some reason or other, I turned around completely to look eastward where the sun still shone on the high hilltop grove of mixed red oak, maple, and white cedar.
What a magnificent conglomeration of colour – in fact, more mixed and beautiful than the cloud-spattered western sky! It was obvious that Mother Nature and naughty Jack Frost had been out on their late night capers again. They had brought out their finely tuned paintbrushes and in moments of magic madness had carelessly splashed their multi-coloured graffiti over the entire hillside.
In my mind their statement read load and clear: summer is gone, fall is definitely here.
Moments later, the sun having dropped further in the western sky, only the eastern tree line showed as a shadow, but then peaking over the tip of the tallest tree in the shadow was old mister man in the moon. A fuller moon I had not seen in the longest of times. As a cricket loudly creaked his love song from somewhere beneath my chair, the words “shine on, shine on, harvest moon up in the sky” kept flashing back into my mind.
A more peaceful evening cannot often be found.
As Foxy, our house dog, my constant companion, walked slowly with me back to the house, the words that I had found deep in my chuckle bucket a couple of nights earlier kept flashing in the back of my mind.
For what it is worth, here it is, almost, but not quite, verbatim.
Inner Peace
If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without alcohol,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
Then you would probably be like Foxy, our family dog.
She handles every situation, as you should.
If you can’t eat it or play with it,
Pee on it and walk casually away.
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105