Broken

The first day I've had time to go into the garden since the big storm. The garden is smashed. This little flower torn from its parent plant, blooming it's little heart out in the midst of rubble. Fortunately it was a only a sizeable portion of the render and not the actual stone of the hundred year old building that fell; still, enough to flatten everything it touched.

Every soft leaf is a blackened ruin, the succulents and waxy-leaved plants relatively unscathed. All this spring growth gone, makes me realise how much I was looking forward to, assuming, the blooming of these dear plants. The things we take for granted. This, a miniscule reminder of the devastation wrought by day after day of storms and tornados in the American mid-west. Makes me wonder if our world WILL end whimpering, echoes of Rachel Carson.

And yet this is no silent spring. The ducks' bath was smashed but the bird-life visiting the garden has increased ten-fold. I imagine they have lost some of their other food sources. I'm glad to see them. The flowers that have survived are showing signs of new life.

There's a beautiful, heartfelt reflection on the destruction we wreak, so often unconsciously, on our world here. A piece both poignant and hopeful, along with some stunning images.