Celebrating the unnoticed and the uncared for in nature, pockets of modest gemlike beauty pregnant with emotional and poetic associations.
All life comes into this world with joy mixed with tears, like this new pothos leave unfurling a perfect teardrop.Rain – falling, twirling, sliding, flowing into human life, on rooftops and on shoes. Where would life be if clouds do not cry?There is something quietly hopeful in the knowledge that this burst of delight is merely the blooming fruiting body of the invisible mycelial wonder beneath.Always a joy to encounter a image like this, to read allegories of feelings into the most impartial chance-happenings, which is surely one of the gateways into poetry.We do not have a monopoly on abstract art. Nature has her way too; its just that we don’t notice it, let alone consider it as art worthy of million dollar price tags.A carpet of dead cherry blossoms scattered on the grounds in Tokyo. Japan’s samurai class compared cherry blossoms to a fragile and tragically short life. For me, these dead blossoms are as beautiful in death as a life beautifully lived.
The point is the seeing – the grace beyond recognition, the ways of the bird rising, unnamed, unknown, beyond the range of language, beyond its noun. Eyes open on growing, flying, happening, and go on opening. Manifold the world dawns on unrecognizing, realizing eyes. Amazement is the thing. Not love, but the astonishment of loving.
~ From “Growing, Flying, Happening” by Alastair Reid (1939 – 2011)
