Friday, June 26, 2015

1,000-mile journey via a phrase


"... bees which were, no more, no less, said Father, the world humming under its breath." 
- Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

In the first town where I lived, there was this field, and in the field were flowers and grasses and breezes that rustled rabbits and bees and little boys who ran and sang and whistled. 

The field was tucked between this street and that street and this church and that apartment building, and the path through the field was the shortcut to downtown.

For a minute or two each time, the field was an oasis from the concrete.

There is the power of words: When I read that phrase in Bradbury's book, I became an 8-year-old boy strolling down that path through a field that no longer exists, and I heard the bees hum among the flowers.

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