in the mail today ...

Here's what was in the mail today when I arrived home ... it smells like a text book but bears none of the horror those things brought with them for me in high school or college!

And here's a poem from the first part:

Patchwork Magic
There must be magic in old calico
For, as I life this quilt so tenderly
And spread it out that its design may show
I hear the years tip-toe away from me
I see a low, white house through the flakes of snow
That cover roof and path and naked tree
And, I am sitting in the cozy glow
Before its friendly hearth where I can see
Beneath a fluted cap, a wrinkled face
The Granny sorts her patches -- yellow, red
To sew with thrifty care, that she may place
A warmth and brightness on her best spare bed
There must be magic in old calico
For I am living sixty years ago.

---- NM Bennett, Farm Journal & Farmer's Wife (Silver Anniversary Issue) 1945

It's just a lovely poem, I think. And that's what I'll be doing ... reading this book, drinking tea or wine (depending on the time of day -- and the day).