Ode to a clothesline

Oh lovely clothesline in the sun -- your praises do I sing --

drying clothes for everyone, sleeves and pants fluttering.

How humbly and simply you do your work, with only wind and sun

and the energy it takes to hang our garments one by one. 

So happy does it make me feel to see laundry flapping there,

to save earth's electricity, and to give our sheets fresh air.

My grandmother had a line like you that held twelve children's clothes,

but you will only ever hold a quarter as much, I suppose.

This busy, fast-paced world may never understand my pleasure

in hanging up each item as if it were a secret treasure,

but I feel connected to the breeze, the sun, and pins of wood.

I sense that using a clothesline is simple, organic, and, somehow, good.

I bury my nose in my fresh-dried clothes and my electric dryer I ponder.

Sans you, clothesline, would I enjoy today's wind and sun so much? I wonder.

(For more about clotheslines, see the video in the September moodling, Why I have chosen a life of Voluntary Simplicity. And for my friend who commented about it this week, here's the carrot/clothespin cross again! I'm not as lucky as my aunt's friend, whose carrot wore her lost wedding ring!)