delight
— the little spark of joy that makes an ordinary moment feel quietly magical
a single beam of sunlight slipped through the trees and landed on the kitchen floor. it was subtle, almost imperceptible.
i sat beside it for a while and watched the dust motes drift through the golden patch as though they had somewhere important to be. one of them floated directly to my hand.
the end of the afternoon was spent while gathering white flowers from the garden, when i found an old ribbon caught in a bramble. i washed it in a little bowl and tied it around the handle of my favorite basket.
a spider had made an extraordinarily delicate web between two flower stems. i left it undisturbed and placed a tiny unripe blackberry beside it, to see whether the spider would notice.
i brought the modest flower arrangement inside and put it in an old bottle on the mantelpiece, when i saw a butterfly enter and circle the ceiling lamp a few times before settling on the curtain.
for a moment, the whole room seemed different — warmer, as if someone had just come home.
at sunset, the clouds turned all shades of pink between the branches. i stood at the window and lifted my hand toward the glass, to catch the color in my palm.