Common things we fail to see

It's rainy season. The plants are green and the wild flowers are bursting with colors.

Lantaw ako sa ugsadan. Just then I realized, ang dami ko pa lang na-miss. Colors are everywhere. Sobrang ganda pala ng mundo. I missed the simple things. Sobrang busy kasi in making a living. Always busy. We have to make money. We have other priorities. We have to look at bigger things to make life better for everyone. We are too important to see and enjoy the trivial things.




Then I remembered my high school Literature. Yon bang poem ni Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ang The Rhodora. Until now, memorize ko pa rin. Actually, ang memorize ko lang ay ang linyang '...if eyes were made for seeing, then Beauty is its own excuse for being.' But who cares? The lines had become so popular, Emerson could have meant the colors in my backyard.



Here's Emerson's poem. And the pictures of what he could have meant. Enjoy.

The Rhodora
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

On being asked, Whence is the flower?

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew:
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.



@

Originally posted: July 27, 2009; 2:42 PM