vibrant and delicate

With the flowering dogwood down the street, the mind segues into a bit of whimsy on this lightly-misted morning.

Six or seven days ago, there were several brilliant days, one right after the other ... cloudless blue skies, air somehow clean and light, and the sun positively announcing every bird or dandelion or Chevrolet. Three or four days in a row and the word that came to mind was "peerless." (If several days in a row are "peerless," are they really any longer "peerless?")

Those days were bright and vibrant, as if nature had turned up the volume.

Then, a couple of days ago, the skies became grey. Rain, sometimes hard, fell. The mornings, as this morning, were coated in a light fog. The visual volume was turned down in one sense, and yet if anyone wants to get the full force and extent of nature's colors, a grey day is the kind of day to wish for. Delicacies leap softly into the eye. Things become as subtle and yet pronounced as a single strand of hair across some maternal brow.

Vibrant and delicate. Aren't people like that?

It's no good turning out some brass band for what is vibrant -- the wars, the deep love, the job well done ... no good because what is vibrant is just vibrant. Eeeeehaw!

Nor is it conclusive to wax rhapsodic about the tendril delicacies that can fill the scene ... the sip of coffee that is perfect, the single, strangely-enormous note within some symphony, the kiss that seems to last forever.

Definitions crumble. That's why things are new.

Sort of.

Newness has a way, like vibrance and delicacy, of outflanking any expression. It really is, after all, just new.

Turn the volume up, turn the volume down -- it's just your radio, right? No reason not to enjoy the program.