Nature's Infinite Book of Secrecy

In nature's infinite book of secrecy
A little I can read.

-- William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra (Act I, Scene ii.)
The Soothsayer's words

Apparently, I keep reading the same passages over and over in nature's infinite book. Every summer I take countless photos of the wine berries on my road, gorgeous in color and texture at every stage of development. I never tire of those multi-hued jewels that emerge from the purple-whiskered casings. I keep coming back to the crimson, orange and chartreuse of the ripening berries, glittering against the green foliage.

The picture was taken on the 4th of July this year, uphill from my house. Click on the photo to enlarge the image.

Speak, Tree

Open to its inner map of color and texture, this dying tree on my street longs to tell its story. There, to the right, is its crackled, knowing eye. In the words of Shakespeare's Macbeth:

Stones have been known to move and trees to speak.

-- William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act III, scene iv.

While searching for this quote, I got hooked on the vivid language and eagerly traveled on, arriving at the following familiar and beautiful passage several pages later:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, scene v.

And now, I suppose, it's time to revisit Faulkner's book and meander through those pages.

The photograph was taken 4/11/10 on my road. Click on image to enlarge.

How Now, Mad Spirit?

How now, mad spirit?
What nightrule now about this haunted grove?

Oberon, King of Fairies
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Act 3, Scene 2, Lines 4 & 5

William Shakespeare

Nightrule -- what a great word. I looked it up in the glossary of William Shakespeare: Complete Works. (There, in the same book, it appeared as "night-rule.") The definition: "disorder by night." It wasn't in my American Heritage Dictionary, but I found it online in Sheridan's Dictionary of the English Language from1797. It was there without the hyphen and was defined as "a tumult in the night."

Haven't we all experienced that? Now, with our windows open to the warm and humid air, once "the iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve" (Theseus, act 5, scene 1, line 357), we hear more than gentle breezes in the maples. Although it's usually quiet on my hill, sometimes, depending on the wind, I can hear the not-so-distant noise of trucks and trains. Once "night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast" (Robin, act 3, scene 2, line 380), I hear nocturnal creatures working the busy night shift. Half-dreaming, I listen to the coyotes up in the woods howl in answer to occasional sirens. I'm haunted by the owl's melancholy hoot as it circles the yard. Once in a while, I shiver at the rare, almost human scream of something being carried away in a beak. Of course the most unsettling "tumult in the night" is the noise of the mad spirits inside our own minds, the murmuring and scratching of our own unsleeping shadows.

The photograph was taken 6/11/08. Click on the image to enlarge. The miniature mask from Bhutan was a gift from my younger brother, world traveler.