Wasting away

   When I am in nature, more so than when I am not, I take pleasure in looking closely at things, especially things that are small, delicate, or in some way unique or unusual to me. I find that there is a great deal to see when I take the time to slow down, and these small discoveries tend to make me happy, often staying with me for some time. Once I have seen something, it becomes easier to see again, and this blog entry is about something that I've managed to see numerous times, allowing me to witness the changes that has occurred over time to it.
   I first saw this small bundle of thin sticks about six or seven days ago during my morning walk, and interestingly, I found it in almost the identical where where I discovered a turtle shell some months ago (and also wrote about in a different blog, picturesthoughts.blogspot.com). For the first three to four days it appeared relatively unchanged, a sort of thin hourglass shape with a denser amount of branches forming both ends, of which one end is still somewhat visible in the photograph below. Each time I would arrive for my morning walk and come upon it I fully expected it to be completely disintegrated due to its fragile appearance and location so near a heavily used footpath, but was daily surprised that it had managed to stay somewhat intact for so long.
   A couple of days ago I noticed that it had begun to alter in shape; one end of the hourglass had become dislodged, and the small branches in the middle had thinned. The day after that, it had begun to show its delicate nature, and more of it had been swept or trampled back into the park where it emanated from. Yesterday,when I took the photograph, it's state had further changed, yet in its dilapidation I can still clearly see the shape of it from that first day. There is something beautiful to me about this, like a kernel of an idea which has altereded, and perhaps grown a little more open over time.
   Today, at a different location, I saw an object which reminded of this bundle, but half-sized, with just one side of the hourglass shape. It looked like some very dried twigs or grass that had been pulled from the earth, and it occurred to me that this may what the object I originally saw was, yet somehow joined at the ends. I thought for a moment that this idea somehow diminished what I had originally imagined this thing to be, but my mind turned quickly, and surprisingly, back to wonder.