Roads to Joy

The Korean dogwood tree, at the bottom (or top, if you consider the gentle rise from the house back up towards the field) of our new-to-us garden, is in full bloom.

But you’d never know it, until you get very close indeed. The flowers, a paler shade of green than the bountiful leaves, are an artful, if subtle, masquerade. The entire tree is actually covered in blossom. Perhaps, I mused, these flowers have some additional virtue, whether exhibiting different colours in an insect-friendly wavelength, or a particularly odour. I turned to Google to help me out, as you do. Sure enough, Cornus kousa exhibits a remarkable signal to pollinating insects, like honeybees, pinpointing its flowers with brilliant precision in the ultraviolet wavelengths. To a bee, apparently, the four bracts surrounding the flower appear dark, while the central ‘bud,’ the actual flower, is brilliantly reflective. Much like the lights of an airport runway in blackest night, then. Come hither, searching bee, here’s a beacon to guide you in!

Shining a different light on the experience of life is, after all, what this blog is all about. The morning’s reflections offer me space to think, to muse and ponder, while readers’ responses provide encouragement along the way.

I was thinking about competitions yesterday, how stimulating they are. This morning, I’m realising that much of my writing work develops from an interaction with external suggestions. Scarcely ever do I sit down of my own accord to write about something that moves me, that compels me intrinsically as it were. Except, perhaps, under deep emotional stress.

But today, without any such forces acting upon my sensibilities, I’m moved to think about subtle grace, thanks to the dogwood tree that blooms in a cascade of glory out of reach of our restricted capacity to see.

I’m thinking, there must be a poem in that thought!