SUNNYSIDE FARM by Rolleen

And this is how I see the farm. It is a modest white house, its seams stretching with love. It is a green picket fence embracing all who enter. It is a column of towering old trees kissing the sky. It is a rusty red pump whose handle has been moved up and down by many a visitor, like the cordial host greeting his guests. It is a spruce tree standing askew to the world, like an orphaned child welcomed into the family. It is a tired, old barn with memories peeking through the missing boards.

It is mother's flower garden arranged in neat little rows, like the painted border on a summer gown. It is rippling waves of green alfalfa softening the earth. It is nights where distant planets and suns seem not so distant and mornings where phantom clouds of fog obscure the features of the landscape. It is clean country air and the scent of fresh cut alfalfa.

It is the piercing discourse of birds and the whining of mosquitos diving at my head. It is the boasting of a rooster, the chatter of hens, and the husky purr of a tractor. It is the happy sounds of children as they push each other on the homemade swing, kidnap mama hen's eggs, discover a new hiding place, struggle up a tree, and squirt one another with the hose.

It is the quiet breeze that whispers across my cheek, the country sun that envelopes me like a lover's embrace and the sweetness of grapes exploding in my mouth. It is a place where I am free to be myself, a place where I am loved.