Leah Marjorie Cox

Greetings! I’m Leah – a writer and poet living in the rural English Lake District. Here you’ll find an oasis of calm, comfort and peace; a sanctuary of healing, hope and beauty. If you’re the highly sensitive-deep thinking-creative type with a love of nature and a longing for the simplicity and quiet of times gone by, I think you’ll feel right at home. Subscribe to my newsletter by entering your name and email below. 
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Simple Living

The Weekly Shop

By Leah Cox on

Good mooooooorning. Or afternoon, or evening. It is currently 7.58am and the birds are singing. Spring is coming!

Well, a poem for you this morning. I hope it brings a smile to your face, in a strange kind of way.

The Weekly Shop

I drive to the prison farm shop
which is really a shed
just outside the gates.
I get carrots and parsnips
with three legs. Beetroot, squash,
whatever they’ve got.
The man behind the counter
tots it up then
rounds it down
and I pay
just a few pounds
for the whole lot.
I go out
put my three-legged veg
in the car then drive
to the supermarket
for the rest.
The lemons are rotting
in their box. A parsnip
is three times the price
and only has one leg.
I get rice, pasta, chopped tomatoes, cheese, beans.
I take it to the till.
The woman gives me the bill.
She doesn’t round it down.
Probably get the sack
if she did that. Or at least
called in, given a warning –
something about favouritism
and profit margins.
Anyway, she gives me the bill
and I leave thinking
this is criminal.

Love and courage,

Leah

P.S. Where do you do your food shopping? Is it easy to get fresh veg where you are? Do you grow your own? Does the supermarket depress you? Do you have lots of good, local independent shops? I would love to hear all your food shopping related thoughts in the comments below. As you probably know, food (and access to REAL food) is something I care a lot about. Read also: The Baby Spinach

Do You Remember the Time?

By Leah Cox on

Do you remember the time when we moved with the sunrise, waking with the birds as she cast her first hopeful light over the horizon? Do you remember the time when the soles of our feet were familiar with the soul of the earth? Or the time when our muscles ached with joy at day’s end?

Do you remember the way we told stories by moonlight and made music with our voices and hands? Do you remember the time when the food on our supper plate still tasted of the earth from which it came? Do you remember what it was like to own a little and love a lot? Or what it was like to feel a part of things? To know our place in things? To feel the gift in every breath?

Do you remember the way things were, before the way things are?

Do you remember? Do you remember what it was like? What it was like to be alive?

Love and courage,

Leah

Folly

By Leah Cox on

The heady smell of bracken after summer rain.
A robin close by.
The heat emanating from the rocks at the end of a hot day.
Sun beams breaking through clouds.
A thunder storm.
The scent of a yellow rose.
The sound of rain on a skylight.
That first sip of morning tea.
Walking barefoot where the sand meets the sea.
Autumn leaves.
Sunlight dancing patterns across walls.
Space to just be.
Belly laughs.
A full moon.
A half moon.
The moon. Oh, the moon!
The smell of a tomato plant.
Warm figs straight from the tree.
Skin against skin.
The absolute stillness of the forest.
Rain against the window pane.
Rising with the sun.
Sunday mornings before the world wakes up.
Making love with your love.
The green green of spring.
Cloud shadows moving over mountains.
Carpets made of wildflowers.
Earth beneath fingernails.
The wonder of staring up into a starry sky.

Tell me, won’t you, what are we all pursuing and
why?

Love and courage,

Leah

✕