A month ago there appeared on our patio a piece of rusted metal, a found-art sculpture. But I was onto Kevin. I had seen it beside his truck in the garage. He had found it beside the recycle bin in the winter and kept it to put on our patio in the spring.
It was bare rusty metal, re-rod, gears, metal plate, and barbed wire. But I did not acknowledge its presence. Instead I went out and bought some spray paint, green and red. And yellow. He thought it was a lemon. I tried to turn it into lemonade.
Now he wants it back to take home. We assume a student had done it for a class and trashed it.
Then this morning he called me out. He has permission to come to the window beside my computer and talk to me. He saw five cecropia moths on the south end of the building. He brought one and put it on our patio table.
It hatches, mates, lays its eggs, and dies in only a couple days or so. Thus, rare to see. It is six inches across. Comes from those big fat green worms. Here is one with a belly full of eggs.
After a neighbor had come to see, and Kevin’s wife came too, charming woman, I took my coffee out and watched. Its wing flapping slowly. It rolled on its side, kicked its legs in spasmodic jerks, and lay still. I sighed for it. Then it up and flew off into the woods.
Where have you found beauty, expected and unexpected? How has life surprised you?
Trail Baboon 
Lovely post, NS. I am constantly surprised by my children. Daughter posted late last night “I just kicked this research paper’s ass!” in reference to her first research methods paper for graduate school. I am eager to hear more about it later today.
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Thanks for the cecropia moth photos – I’ve never seen one in person.
Nice what you did with the metal sculpture, too.
Yesterday returning from the city, I tried a different route – MN State Hwy 60 (I was on the two-lane segment between Zumbrota and Wabasha). It was unbelievably beautiful, occasional vistas of rolling farm land, and lots of winding through forest. Green green green. I’ll probably us it more often when I’m not in a hurry.
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We take 60 from Mankato to Red Wing. Fun, fun drive. Wonderful landscape. Varied.
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I’m always looking for beauty. On my most recent trip to Duluth, I drove up the shore a bit and took the Stony Point road from the scenic route between Duluth and Two Harbors. Came upon a rocky beach whose color was predominately blue. Blue rocks. Bright but cloudy light added gray-blue tones to the sky and lake. It was beautiful there.
Thanks for sharing the moth pictures, NS. How wonderful. Once long ago, I saw a luna moth but I have never seen a cecropia.
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I think the Baboons are all out enjoying lemonade and being surprised by beauty.
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In the rain.
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I’m kind of happy it’s raining today. I have a crushing to-do list this week mostly having to do with work. So if I can take watering off of my to-do list for today that’s just one more thing I don’t have to worry about.
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At least one baboon buried in her cubicle. 16 more days until the client flies. Not that I’m counting.
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I think LJB’s photos are beautiful.
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Aw, shucks…
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I am always surprised by the beauty of a soft rain or the vivid blue of a flax field.
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Rise and Shine Baboons,
I am sitting in a very quiet lunchroom at the U of MN School of Social Work where I am attending an “Ethics and Supervision” training. Actually it is not too bad, considering how dull these can be.
Every day I wake up alive, I still feel surprised after my encounter with cancer years ago, and an unwise Dr’s proclamation that I would be Stage 4. I was not. Stage 2, and here I am all these years later.
NS, the moth is so beautiful, and I like the painted sculpture. Here on the rainy U of MN campus there are some gorgeously green courtyards that nearly take my breath away. Now back to the workshop after I get my umbrella and take a short walk.
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I just had occasion to spend some time in antique shop – nay, Antique Mall. I am always amazed at the number of beautiful old things languishing in places like this. I would like to give so many of them a home, but then would have to give up other beautiful stuff to do that. Found a glass canning funnel like the one that was lost in the move, and that will be the beautiful thing for today.
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I have been startled by the beauty of backlit vegetation. I don’t have a gift for describing such things, but I’ll try. I once startled a buck deer–quite possibly the largest I’ve ever seen. He ran away so quickly I couldn’t see him with clarity. He was a giant deer with high and wide antlers, the kind of buck that looks like it is carrying a rocking chair on its head. The deer rushed away through a cattail marsh. In November cattail pods are so soft they explode when touched. By “explode” I mean the cattail pod shatters and releases a cloud of fluffy seeds that are attached to a sort of tiny parachute that carries them on the wind (much like dandelion fluff). As the deer ran his antlers struck cattails that disintegrated and became long streams of floating fluff hanging in the air like the smoke hanging behind a skywriting airplane. (Whew! I knew this would be hard!) The final element in this is hardest to describe. I kicked the deer up out of its bed late in the afternoon when the sun was almost touching the far horizon. So the cattails and the deer were backlit with bright, champagne-colored light. The deer became a ghostly bright figure that had glowing streams trailing both antlers like fireworks. So . . . a magic deer running through a gorgeously backlit world streaming rocket fire from both antlers. I think it was the most stunning thing I’ve seen, but it was over so quickly I can’t say for sure.
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Thoughts on the the Fairie Queen
Walking through the woods with thoughts awonder
up from under your heavy foot doth break the thunder
of the startled grouse who too long trust you to turn aside
not knowing you not knowing your path on earth
nor the path of your thoughts have troubled her bed.
A glimpse of mottled wing caught so briefly against
dark voids and then gone to left or right
you know not which. And by that splinter of time
was beauty caught, and you were blest,
for beauty caught and held will turn to dust.
You are reminded beauty is best glimpsed
for only that flash of light against the dark
as in thunder the dust explodes between you and the sun.
“So passeth, in the passing of a day,
Of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flowre,
Ne more doth flourish after first decay,
That earst was sought to decke both bed and bowre,
Of many a Ladie, and many a Paramowre:
Gather therefore the Rose, whilest yet is prime,
For soone comes age, that will her pride deflowre:
Gather the Rose of love, whilest yet is time,
Whilest loving thou mayest loved be with equall crime.”
Edmund Spenser
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I can almost see that scene in my mind’s eye, but I’m pretty sure my imagination doesn’t come close to the reality.
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I find mosaic art to be very beautiful. It takes something broken that would otherwise be thrown away and makes it into something lovely and creative.
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I agree that mosaics can be, and often are, beautiful. I don’t believe that, in most cases, they are the result of using broken shards of material.
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PJ, did you read “Broken for You,” which I think was a BBC selection a few years ago? That was one of the best and most memorable books I’ve read in ages. In the book, beautiful, meaningful, and heartbreaking mosaics were created from broken shards. I agree though that something like that is not the norm for mosaic art. Great book if you haven’t read it.
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Sorry that there wasn’t much of a response to today’s post. Personally I find it hard at the moment to focus on anything but what’s going on politically in this country. And that ain’t pretty!
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Amen to that.
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