Freckles on the Trail

This lily reminded me of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem and of its encouragement for us freckle-faces to view our markings not as blemishes but as one of many “things counter…strange” whose source is from the one “whose beauty is past change.”  

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                               Pied Beauty
    Glory be to God for dappled things--
        For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
            For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
    Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
        Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
            And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
   
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
        Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
            With swíft, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dím;
    He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                                               
                                  Praise hím.

Here are other photos of freckles in nature, taken during this summer's hike on the Appalachian Trail.