TAKING A WALK THROUGH DIFFERENT LANDSCAPES
DAY 5
Andrew Motion reviewing Andy Goldsworthy’s works in a piece titled “The Pencil of Nature” (The New York Review of Books Feb. 8, 2018, p. 17-18):
“They are also works that impressively extend the expression of themes that have obsessed Goldsworthy from the beginning of his career. At the same time they let us hear the silence produced by the deadlocked confrontation of equally weighed and weighed opposites, they allow the earth to have its say. Not just by giving close attention small and insignificant-seeming things such as thorns and leaves and nettles and petals, but by embracing the fact of their own transience while also reminding us that everything in nature involves a past and future, as well as the present in which we regard it”.
Cherry Blossoms :
Petals spreading in the wind, messengers and heralds of a new order
Buds or in full bloom, to each one’s pace and rhythm.
Best seen from a distance: when you grasp them you are left with wind in your hands.
Nothing tangible, only a promise of something.
They are striking in the contrast they expose between vulnerability and beauty. Some guise and shape of a promise that has to be discovered, determined and fulfilled every year.
Again. Like a renewed contract with life.
This one tree, alone, not very big, conjures other trees. A myriad of them. Back there, back then. Here now, there now.
The single one doing its best to stage the beautiful and meaningful out of the nothingness of the urban setting. Reaching out to pedestrians, bikers and drivers. By the main road, yet no one seems to notice the symphony of colors, and explosion of joy.
Yet for those who pay attention, a moment of eternity is in store.
Place yourself under the tree. Be attentive to the perfume of its presence. The little clusters waving, and affirming the power of a beauty embedded in a world of possibility.
Breakthrough in your clouds. Transience and eternity reconciled. At least, momentarily.