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Trails & Transcendence

Freckles on the Trail

7/18/2016

3 Comments

 
Picture
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.”  

                               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. 
3 Comments

    Trails we follow, 
    barriers we cross

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