#birches

“A blue April morning, the shimmer of light, a breath, a passing air, and it was no longer a harsh and stubborn country, its hard-won fields beleaguered by moor and whine, its stones heaped together in dike and cairn, marking the land like lines upon a weathered countenance, whose past must stay upon it to the end; but a dream, willing men's hearts. In the sun, the leafless boughs were gleaming. Birches were like tangles of shining hair; or rather, he thought, insubstantial, floating like shredded light above the soil. Below the hills, blue floated in the hollows, all but tangible, like a distillation that light had set free from the earth; and on a rowan tree in early leaf, its boughs blotted against the background, the tender leaves, like flakes of green fire, floated too, the wild burning life of spring loosened from earth's control. On every side, the earth was transmuted. Scents floated, the subtle life released from the earth and assailing the pulses. Song floated. This dour and thankless country, this land that granted a' winter and girded a' summer could change before one's eyes to an elfin and enchanted radiance, could look, by some rare miracle of light or moisture, essentialized.”

i’d like to get away from earth awhile