For a few minutes a day
for a few days of the year,
the sun shines low through the window
and casts a shadow high on the wall,
as this morning, when I see
the shape of six chrysanthemums
splayed in diffuse gray
just below the ceiling
and I put down my work to marvel.
It’s simple science, really,
how opaque objects
placed in the path of light rays
do not let the light pass through.
But there’s something so beautiful
and temporary
about the giant spectral blooms,
so I do what the heart asks me to do—
I watch as the ephemeral bouquet
intensifies, then fades away
until the wall is just a wall
and I am just a woman
beside six purple chrysanthemums
who was found by a moment of grace.
Having seen a neighborhood park fountain display a most unusually positioned rainbow at a very needful moment in my life, I revisited that bench the next day to see it again ~ but the position of the sun had already shifted just enough that the phenomenon did not reappear…
so so temporal, this beautiful life
So, so! ✨
Ah… if a shadow falls in the forest with no one to observe it, is it still beautiful? So much beauty unobserved and even less of it shared, so that I find myself especially grateful this morning for your daily offerings which, for me, so often lift up the ephemeral and invite my heart to see.
And again today… Oh to glory in the penumbra! To uphold and nourish that fleeting beauty in the retelling… and Oh to be found–everyday and often!
to be found everyday and often! here’s to beauty shared ❤️
“…. and I am just a woman
beside six purple chrysanthemums
who was found by a moment of grace.”
and you are the day, the sun, the window, the shadow, the light rays, the ephemeral bouquet, the purple, the wall, the woman, the moment of grace – and the finding.
The way I see things.
xoxoxoxoxoxo ~ L
May be forever and always find ourselves being found by moments of grace.
amen