Shades of Grey

Lichen is weird stuff. Omnipresent - thriving here in damp, warm west Scotland. Likely to grow on anything - stones, roofs, trees - but independent, not needing soil, not taking anything from its host, not a parasite. Ancient - one of the earliest lifeforms. Neglected - almost overlooked, as if it is part of the rock, not something growing on the rock; not attention-grabbing like flowers, not needing pollinators. Seemingly eternal - growing so slowly, enduring, immobile, year after year

I did a bio sciences degree, but it was never mentioned. Seldom of economic importance, seldom a pathogen, seldom damaging, seldom dangerous. Plant sciences disown it; mycology has bigger mushrooms to fry; microbiology thinks it's too big; bacteriology is busy saving the world. Artists don't paint it, poets don't ode it, choirs don't hymn it, lovers don't carve their names in it. No-one sails the seas in search of it

And yet, today, the greyest of grey days, when the cloud was so low and heavy that we kept our heads constantly bowed, when the wind was so strong you could taste its malevolence, when the birds forsook the air, when any light that filtered through cloud and mist and driving rain had the colour of bruises and phlegm, the lichen had an incandescence, a serenity, as if this was its moment

It had seen worse and it was unperturbed