Who Knows How?
Pied Beauty
Gerard Manley Hopkins – 1844-1889
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 swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him
I like Gerard Manley Hopkins work in spite of my inclination to distance myself from organized religion in general, and the Catholic church in particular. Hopkins was a priest. His ability to capture the shimmering, moving detail of experienced splendor is exceptional. He was 
god-smacked; hit upside the head with the sense that an agency beyond our understanding was relentlessly at work in the movement of Nature, of a tradesman (or woman) at work, in the delight of fine cuisine, etc
How could anyone not fall in love with that? I believe that Ray Bradbury once said that the secret of 
happiness is knowing how to fall in love and how to stay in love. I wrote that down and have never forgotten the quotation.
In the spirit of the words of Pied Beauty I offer some photos taken in Kraklauer Park by the creek just yesterday. The season is at a peak of felicity for vegetation, insects and birds which claim the strip of wildness alongside the creek bed as home. It is a small space, which you could circumambulate in less than a minute. So much life in such a small amount of space.
In there Agency at work behind the scenes? I have no idea. The concept seems as useful as any.
