Sunday, May 5, 2013

A Single Flower

As I was out walking this week, I noticed a single flower growing in a seam of the sidewalk.  It had five yellow petals, and was about three-eighths of an inch in diameter.  I searched, but I could not find any similar flowers nearby.

The world around us contains innumerable small dispensations of this sort, doesn't it?

Imagine this:  for the brief time that it blooms, that tiny yellow flower stands at the center of the surface of our spinning globe.  The flower is the mid-point:  everything else on Earth flows up to it and away from it.

Eliot Hodgkin, "Two Hyacinth Bulbs" (1966)

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower -- but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

Alfred Tennyson, The Holy Grail and Other Poems (1870).  Tennyson left the poem untitled.

Eliot Hodgkin, "Five Variegated Ivy Leaves" (1960)
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4 comments:

  1. MerisiMay 5, 2013 at 7:10 AM

    Beautiful words and paintings!

    Thank you,
    Merisi

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stephen PentzMay 5, 2013 at 10:18 AM

    Merisi: it is very nice to hear from you again.

    I'm pleased that you liked the poem and the paintings. As a long-time visitor, I'm sure you've noticed that I am an admirer of Eliot Hodgkin's work: somehow he manages to fill his paintings of ordinary things (which are not ordinary at all, of course) with a great deal of life and feeling.

    Thank you very much for visiting, and for your thoughts.

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  3. MerisiMay 9, 2013 at 1:35 AM

    I learned about Eliot Hodgkin through your posts, and you are so right, of course, about his ability to make so-called ordinary things shine.

    I always enjoy coming here.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Stephen PentzMay 11, 2013 at 12:32 AM

    Merisi: thank you for the follow-up comment. That is an excellent way to describe Hodgkin: he does, as you say, make "so-called ordinary things shine."

    ReplyDelete