Sunday. Driving the back roads to see what I could shutter, I stumbled across this hawk, eating his lunch (pieces of which are still dangling from the post). It's amazing how many times I've spied a hawk thundering to the sky with something small and gray lashing violently from its claws, the rodent's tail in panicked frenzy as the hawk glides toward a nearby outpost. This one was so preoccupied with dinner that he scarcely noticed I was nearby (normally, hawks peel skyward the minute they sense your presence, you'll notice that if you drive by them at a normal speed, they hardly move, but if you slow down to observe them, they will disappear).
During the same drive, I stumbled across this barn, resplendent in decay, the window resembling the eye of an Ent. The barn was so perfectly dilapidated, it looked more like a Hollywood set piece than an actual barn wilting under the erosion of time. The Japanese refer to this type of beauty as wabi-sabi: 'Things wabi-sabi are expressions of time frozen. They are made of materials that are visibly vulnerable to the effects of weathering and human treatment. They record the sun, wind, rain, heat, and cold in a language of discoloration, rust, tarnish, stain, warping, shrinking, shriveling, and cracking. Their nicks, chips, bruises, scars, dents, peeling and other forms of attrition are testament to histories of use and misuse. Though things wabi-sabi may be on the point of dematerialization (or materialization) -extremely faint, fragile, or desiccated- they still possess an undiminished poise and strength of character.' (Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers, by Leonard Koren).
' To the artist there is never anything ugly in nature.' - Auguste Rodin