Beautiful Things
Day 257
A Seed by William Allingham
See how a Seed, which Autumn flung down,
And through the Winter neglected lay,
Uncoils two little green leaves and two brown,
With tiny root taking hold on the clay
As, lifting and strengthening day by day,
It pushes red branchless, sprouts new leaves,
And cell after cell the Power in it weaves
Out of the storehouse of soil and clime,
To fashion a Tree in due course of time;
Tree with rough bark and boughs’ expansion,
Where the Crow can build his mansion,
Or a Man, in some new May,
Lie under whispering leaves and say,
“Are the ills of one’s life so very bad
When a Green Tree makes me deliciously glad?”
As I do now. But where shall I be
When this little Seed is a tall green Tree?
And through the Winter neglected lay,
Uncoils two little green leaves and two brown,
With tiny root taking hold on the clay
As, lifting and strengthening day by day,
It pushes red branchless, sprouts new leaves,
And cell after cell the Power in it weaves
Out of the storehouse of soil and clime,
To fashion a Tree in due course of time;
Tree with rough bark and boughs’ expansion,
Where the Crow can build his mansion,
Or a Man, in some new May,
Lie under whispering leaves and say,
“Are the ills of one’s life so very bad
When a Green Tree makes me deliciously glad?”
As I do now. But where shall I be
When this little Seed is a tall green Tree?
How many things do we see during any given day that we give no notice to? It is hard to miss the faces we love, the clothing we pick out, our visage in the mirror, but do we really notice how huge the sky is, the color of the sunlight on tree bark, the curve of the page as we turn it?
Today I saw so many things: 5 horses near a barn, two white Shetlands and three brown carriage horses, a wire fence bordering the road with rusty barbed wire in a line along the top of it, tan-colored weeds surrounding a white mailbox on a wooden post, black shutters on a white house, a large tree lying on its side with its platter of roots black and wet standing up and reflecting on the brackish water surrounding it, lavender dresses and denim pants flapping on a clothes line, a pink paper bookmark ripped in half that fell out of two books, a stream of gravel trailing down a curving road, glass beads sparkling under fluorescent light, a rusted barrel balanced on a wooden post. I marveled at the silhouettes of blackened trees against the night sky and mercury lights reflecting in long lines on a narrow stream.
I see miraculous things every single day – from the hands that type these words to an endless furrowed field awaiting the seeds that will feed thousands of people, God’s creation takes my breath away.
Cfbookchick - a Girl, a Camera, a Challenge... 
Very pretty, I love the way the sunshine comes through the seeds. :_)
And oh! The sun was so warm that day too! There is nothing like a bit of sunshine to make winter seem a bit shorter!
I’ve found that ever since I got more serious about photography, I actually LOOK for the things I ordinarily wouldn’t notice.
Me too! I keep looking for that next shot all of the time!
Lovely shot Cyndi. I’m a sucker for flares 🙂
I like them as well, Eden!
Cyndi! Your images are never-failing. Always strong, even in their fragility. And your words, carefully chosen to precisely reflect your experience, your sense of things seen and heard and felt, always rise to meet them. I so deeply appreciate what you give to this daily challenge. we all are blessed, in the process, by the many things you see. Thank you!
You know, when I was in middle school, I went on several class field trips with the science teacher, Mr. Tchozeski, and he is the one who really affected how I look at things. Our homework for each and every trip was to write down 500 things we saw and my goodness! We looked at EVERYTHING! He was quite an influence!
Incredible flare here!! It’s absolutely amazing.
Love the colors and the bokeh!!
Beautiful photo Cyndi!
This was not what I had been planning on this day, that is for sure! I was actually setting out to photograph that rusty barrel that sits atop the wooden post. These seeds were so pretty though, with the sun, that I stopped right there.
i love flare too…and the backlighting through the leaves brings through so much clarity and detail….love it
I just looked at the uploaded photo and it isn’t as clear as the file on my computer! Grrrrrrr!
i’ve noticed a loss in sharpness and clarity with some of my files lately…maybe they’ve changed the sizes here on wordpress? or squishing them…i still love this pic!
Your list is poetic. I love it.
You are lucky I stopped where I did! The original list was so long and growing that I would have been writing for hours…
Yearstricken is right–sweet poetry here. And you are right too, Cyndi–there is elegant and moving poetry in all of the miracles that surround us daily, if we are awake and wise enough to apprehend it. Thank you for bringing it so beautifully to our attention with the delicate hanging bat-wings of the maple seeds, the starry solar flare, the explicatory Allingham poem and your gentle meditation on it all.
It simply amazes me at the things we miss every single day and even though I am always looking at EVERYTHING, there is so much that passes right by. And I want to SEE it all!
This is so pretty!! Love the flare. 🙂
Thank you, Adeena. I find that I when there is sunlight, I am always looking for a way to exploit it!
Love how the light is coming through, so pretty and striking
Thanks, Dawn! ♥
God forbid that a day shall pass when I do not glory in all that is.
Thank you for a wonderful post! From the photograph to your prose. Lovely all the way through!
So many people miss it all – I just got home from a night drive and the stars are a.m.a.z.i.n.g. We all need to just go out and marvel at them once in a while!
Beautiful image and the written reflection is even better! Lovely.