Well Written Wednesdays: a little cell of warmth

{image credit: Giulio Speranza}

I try not to let good things go by unnoticed. In spring the foliage slowly closes in the prospects from all the windows and the porch. When the trees are in full leaf, this place, close to the road as it is, seems remote and set apart. When the leaves fall, the distances lengthen all around. The river is more visible from the house then, and I can see the pastures and cornfields on the far side, and beyond them the hills.

Some days a strong breeze fairly fills the place. Every leaf moves, and the sound is like a long breath. Sometimes there is a breeze that moves the leaves without a sound.

And I have known days when the temperature would not rise above zero, when snow would be deep, ice on the river, the north wind rattling the branches. Then this house is a little cell of warmth, a cold brilliance coming in at the windows, a good fire in the drumstove, a pot of bean soup simmering, the dog asleep on the floor. Nobody comes, only the birds to the suet feeders. And I have nothing to do but read and watch. I seem to be in a room in the wind. I talk to the dog, who raises her head to listen and then goes back to sleep.

-from Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry