back-lit fragile candle-lights

 Today's squirrel dramatically back lit by the afternoon sun.

Fragile,  is my small stone to drop into a pool.  It is a word, which keeps returning to my mind. We live in fragile islands of relative calm in a world where men and Nature challenge each other for notoriety in outbursts of horrific violence. A  universe of unimaginable proportions, which we do not yet completely understand,  is, meanwhile, riddled with explosions  across unimaginable distances. Beautiful? It depends where you are standing and in which direction you are looking. A terrible beauty perhaps!

In The Pantiles an art gallery has closed down to be replaced by a hair-dressing salon. When you look though the window the room seems to be poorly lit. A central chandelier is oddly out place and the lights above the mirrors are modest in their intensity. Then it strikes me that women or men for that matter, staring at themselves while their hair is rearranged, are probably more comfortable if their faces are not exposed to the harsh, clinical light required by a surgeon or a dentist. As the philosopher, Francis Bacon observed  of truth, " it doth not show the masques and mummeries and triumphs of the world half so dainty and stately as candle-lights".