Yesterday was a beautiful December day with temperatures in the mid-forties. When I took my afternoon walk it felt like spring to me. There were still a few tiny patches of snow but not many. And the birds, oh my stars how the birds were singing and flitting from place to place. I saw robins, chickadees, nuthatches and woodpeckers on my short walk in the neighborhood. Towards the end of my walk I heard the shouts of children at play and it reminded me so much of spring days when everyone has been cooped up inside far too long. When the weather turns mild children burst outside to play, run, and shout with joy.

These are

Small Things

 that brought great joy.

Though I didn’t make photographs on my walk, I did pick up a few small things along the way — found pieces of nature’s beauty — to bring back home to photograph.

I found beauty in a simple twig, a dried up portion of hydrangea blossom, and a tiny dried weed. Then at home I picked one of the dried stems of flowers from my tiny flower garden and found two remaining leaves from my fall stash of fallen leaves.

Breakage

I go down to the edge of the sea.

How everything shines in the morning light!

The cusp of the whelk,

the broken cupboard of the clam,

the opened, blue mussels,

moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—

and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,

dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.

It’s like a schoolhouse

of little words,

thousands of words.

First you figure out what each one means by itself,

the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop

       full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

   — Mary Oliver

These simple things gave me great joy as I contemplated and photographed them using the north-easterly light that streams through my office window. What small things can you find in your daily life that remind you of beauty, infinity and mystery?

May you walk in beauty.