Friday, December 03, 2010

cabbage, arsenic, quiet


Posted by Picasa Tired of   the sight of snow for the moment I pick, for the sake of mutual warmth,  an ornamental cabbage from a file of recent photographs.

Sometimes I like to remind myself that all living things are composed of  the six chemical elements - oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur. Then, today I read of a bacterium subsisting on arsenic as a substitute for the phosphorus which is a neighbouring element on the Periodic Table. I can't help  feeling that  this addition makes the list of chemical building blocks of which  we are formed, a little less comforting.

The quiet is something wonderful. Few vehicles pass and the sound of  those that do is muffled by the compacted  snow beneath their wheels. Meanwhile the cars parked beside the curb, as if ashamed of their presence, cower beneath vast cowls  of snow, while icicles hang from their radiators, like drips from the nose of a careless old man.

1 comment:

The Crow said...

Cabbages are beautiful; so Edna Ferber wrote in "So Big."

There were several fields along a mountainside in nearby Adams County where row upon row of green/white cabbages lay against the dark soil like pale jade beads against black velvet. A wonderous sight in late fall, before the frosts hit.

Edna's character, Selena, was right: they are beautiful, whether round like beads, or frilled like lace, as is the one in your photo.