September 9, 2006

Moist.

Tree fungus

It's moist and gray, really dank -- but nicely cool -- here in Madison today. It's been so pretty all week, but I have a ton of work to get done, so it's okay with me. I've got a thousand résumés to read -- literally. (I'm chairing the Appointments Committee.) And I've got three smallish, more-or-less scholarly things to crank forward. And some other things that I ought to write on a to-do list so I don't fritter away mental energy intermittently prompting myself to do.

Anyway, like that tree fungus? It's so clean and crisply designed. Not really that fungus-y, as fungus goes. I ran across it yesterday, walking to school, when I detoured from the main lake path up onto the woodland path:

Wooded path by Lake Mendota

Wooded path by Lake Mendota

That last picture after that last post makes me want to link to these lyrics (which were not written by Cat Stevens):
Morning has broken, like the first morning.
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird.
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning,
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word.

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlight from heaven.
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass.
Praise for the sweetnes of the wet garden,
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass.

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning.
Born of the one light Eden saw play.
Praise with elation, praise every morning;
God's recreation of the new day.

6 comments:

Ann Althouse said...

Hmmm.... good catch re word/world. Okay, I'm buying it from iTunes right now. A lot of piano crashes over the line, but I think he's singing "word," properly, rhyming with "bird." I'll correct it.

chuck b. said...

Actually, shelf fungus would be the more correct common name. Lots of fungi could be a tree fungus.

Ann Althouse said...

Shelf fungus. I like that. Makes me want to go back and put some tiny little books on it.

Ruth Anne Adams said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
chuck b. said...

"Makes me want to go back and put some tiny little books on it."

That reminds me of Elfland at UC Santa Cruz.

In the redwood forest semi-remote from the center of campus, several generations students created and tended to what seemed like a few acres of land where they'd built elf-sized small houses and treehouses, and paths and other kinds of woodsy forts and similar structures semi-hidden in the landscape.

You could go for a little hike, and all of the sudden find yourself in the middle of miniaturized Elfland. The more you looked and the more carefully you looked, the more you'd see. Always made for a delightful--shall we say--trip.

It's mostly just a memory now as a lot of the land's been developed, and I was surprised to see it has almost no web presence.

AmPowerBlog said...

That's so nice that you take the road less traveled on occasion -- it makes life interesting, doesn't it?

Burkean Reflections