“She carried a basketfull of flames, but whether fire or flowers
with crimson petals shading toward a central gold,
was hard to say—though certainly, it burned,
and the light within it had nowhere else
to go, and so fed on itself, intensified its red
and burning glow, the only color in the scene.”
Eleanor Wilner , The Girl with Bees in Her Hair
A long time ago, Annie Dillard (In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, I think) wrote an essay about a person, blind from birth, whose sight was restored when they were an adult. The problem was, their brain didn’t know how to interpret what their eyes were seeing. Upon seeing a tree, back-lit from a low sun, in the brilliant colors of autumn, the newly sighted person called it a tree of lights.
Wouldn’t it be fun to see something in your garden so new and fresh that your brain didn’t know what to make of it? I wouldn’t want to go blind first, but I would like to be able to see things with new eyes. Especially in this black & white month when there’s nothing much happening outside.
4 comments:
Hi WS, so wonderful to catch up with you. I want to add the thought that the cat hair might have been the culprit to the cable box failure. And Annie Dillard's "The Living" has to be one of the greatest books ever written.
Frances
That would certainly be a wonderful experience. Maybe it could display itself in the form of my veggies not being attacked by pests - ever! That would be an awesome sight to see.
I am looking at your lovely tree and seeing it as though I am blind because I can't figure out what kind of tree it is. It's sure lovely.
Your comment on my last post was much appreciated. I'm glad you persevered. Wouldn't it be fun to mail yourself somewhere like that girl with the apiarian up-do? I would love to be a real eye-opener for someone, but the bees would definitely not be a part of my picture. Too sweet.
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