magnificent magnolia

 
We drove past this magnolia just a few blocks from our home at just a little after noon day before yesterday, and it was magically alight and looked as if it were about to lift off to the sky!  well, surely it embodied the true connection between earth and sky.  i didn't have my camera, however, and had to come back a few hours later when the light was not the same - but still - I love the way it looks with its beautiful load of blossoms circled underneath it, not cleaned up, reminding me of the robert frost poem, 'unharvested':

a scent of ripeness from over a wall,
and come to leave the routine road
and look for what had made me stall,
there sure enough was an apple tree
that had eased itself of its summer load,
and of all but its trivial foliage free,
now breathed as light as a lady's fan.
for there there had been an apple fall
as complete as the apple had given man.
the ground was one circle of solid red.

may something go always unharvested!
may much stay out of our stated plan,
apples or something forgotten and left,
so smelling their sweetness would be no theft.

only in this case it is magnolia blossoms.  it used to more usual around berkeley to see plants that had been allowed to run riot, that were unmaintained and therefore somewhat wild.  i enjoyed the city when it was in that phase.  things are more manicured now. 

this photo does not do justice to the ecstatic excess expressed by this plant.  i love it!  i chose to settle for this pale replica / photo, because only yesterday was there the requisite sunshine to lend this tree lift-off, the days before and the days since have been overcast and often rainy.  day before yesterday was the chance, so i took it.

Comments

[Peter]

I guess spring flowers will be on us before we know it, despite whales of snow still beached along our walkways and streets.

There's something extravagant about pedals covering the ground below a pedal-covered tree. "How can you afford this?" I always want to ask the tree. But what a scene: the tree looks as if it's hovering over a lake's reflection of it. A thing of beauty, more so from its ephemeral message, I think.

[Kasturi]

'whales of snow beached along the streets' - peter, i love it!

and yes, i've seen them in the photos on your blog recently ~ k