an unexpected evening

Just a lovely kind of evening a mother of eight rarely gets.  Six of my children at a Community event.  One newly minted big sister out on a Daddy date of pink ice cream and sparkle shoes.  My squeaky newborn rocking blissfully asleep in her cradle.  I looked around my strangely quiet home. I forget how a sleeping baby deepens the quiet to a house.  It makes the peace  almost tangible… it makes the stillness hang in the air.  It’s a holy kind of quiet… not to be disturbed.

~

~

Out with the setting sun I went to visit with my old friend.
A pile of weeds grew beside me.
The acute hearing a momma acquires when she is where her sleeping baby isn’t.
The smell of freshly turned soil.
The rattle of seed packets.
The barn swallows dipping on the fields current.
A basket of bronze  skinned onions.
The hush of a baby sleeping by the open window.
The feeling of accomplishment as a fall garden is tucked into cleaned out beds.
The rarity of a solo walk around the little farm.

~

~

~