Impermanence 5

This week's theme is the Japanese concept of 'mono no aware' - this means 'the gentle sadness of things', most obviously observed by us in the West in the intense Japanese appreciation of the beauty of ephemeral cherry blossom (for an explanation of this project, see here).

So, as previously, I'm constrained in what I can manage as response by my ongoing debilitation by pneumonia. I ventured out into the garden . . . the cherry blossom here has been and gone; it's too early for the day lilies . . .

Spring here has been late, because of cold weather, and hence condensed. So, in a way, the whole of the exuberance of spring this year evokes 'mono no aware' - there are flowers blooming together that don't usually coincide, and it will all be over very quickly.

So I took this photo - I wanted to capture the sheer frothy brief exuberance of azalea buds, bluebells and comfrey flowers, all together. It's not a very good photograph . . . but my energy, like Shakespeare's summers lease, 'hath all too short a date' . . . so it was this image or nothing.