![]() 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.
3 Comments
Don Volent
7/30/2016 02:45:04 am
We are all aware, with few exceptions, of the current Pokemon Go craze. In fact, recently, this "augmented reality" game has been added to the warning against texting while driving.
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Tim
7/30/2016 08:38:08 am
Re: the concluding "three eager ducks paddling in the water." OR "the three eager birds paddling in the water" or "the three /positive attitude/ things moving in the water" or "some animals not on land" or "some things somewhere else" or "something somewhere" or "no-thing-ness"?
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Don
7/31/2016 04:32:20 am
Now Tim, after rereading your last response, I had to walk about in the cool of the day for a bit before I could give you some measure of an adequate response. True, I could just leave Things as they are, but I really do want to add that my first response to you and Gerard's "dappled" things was, perhaps, a similar wondering to Gary Snyder's (the poet) wondering in my current reading of the "thoughtful, affectionate collection of interviews and letters spanning three decades" of the poet Gary Snyder with South African writer and scholar Julia Martin (Nobody Home: Writing, Buddhism, and Living in Places) where he admitted that he was in the process of a long considering of the relationship between direct seeing and culture. In our case, direct seeing is the "dappled" things and the trio of eager ducks, while the culture is not only the overlay of Pokemon characters but of the "Anas rubripes" and the "no-thing-ness" as well. Form and emptiness, emptiness and form. Direct seeing and culture, culture and direct seeing. We need both. Or, rather, what is is both. Pray then, that we preserve the balance.
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