Saturday, January 2, 2021

Stop, & See

I think this must be my favorite piece of poetry, from William Blake's Auguries of Innocence:


To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour.


It reminds me not to overlook the commonplace things I would otherwise take for granted. When things are around us every day, we tend not to see the beautiful little details, because our attention is focused on the whole.

As I walked along our boardwalk, I noticed that the water level of the lake had gone down. It left behind the most exquisite fractures and suspended sheets of paper thin ice, with magnificent edges and patterns.




The supporting water beneath had gone, causing collapse and discontinuities. Some stood separated from the body of ice, like individual pillars or panes of glass, while others were folded and crushed upward, as in mountain formations. 





Each fragment was different - a whole world of ice action in miniature. It was well worth halting my walk to look at what the change in water level had done.





I hope you find something wonderful in the ordinary today!



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