Some flowers on the dusty and hot path have good conditions, a balance of shade and exposure, perhaps a wall to lean against, some shelter from the harshness, some protection while the delicate stems and little fingers of the petals form. They might have enough sunlight and warmth and water to enable generous flowers, they might have a good positioning, easy for the bees to find, easy for wind to line her pockets with their seed. They have the best start. Luck for now, is on their side. They have every possibility of survival.
Other flowers have more difficult conditions, marooned in the centre of the track, stuck in full sunlight with very little shade, battered by mountain winds, vulnerable to car tyres and feet and dust storms. They live in places where the water runs off quickly or never quite reaches them. Vulnerable to harm their chances are not so good, and as a rule, their flowers tend to be smaller so they’re easy to miss. You have to look very carefully for them and when you find them you have to get down on your hands and knees in the dirt, in the rubble, in the dust, and really look to see them. I mean really look - beyond your comfort zone, beyond what you expect, beyond what you ‘think’ perhaps should be there, beyond what you like and don’t like. It’s worth it because miracles are found in the lowliest places, in the rubble, in the dirt, in the places where life seems discarded and unlikely. There wonder lies.
How does anything beautiful manage to grow in such difficult conditions? The petals of the tiny flowers are indigo and the colour feels like endlessness, and their filaments are purple and their anthers suspended in space like bright yellow stars and some of the flowers are scarlet, and their petals are velvet to touch. Their lives have to be especially bright to be seen, their colours especially deep and alive. Their life requires such effort and effort and energy are a kind of holiness, a kind of faith, a continuous prayer. I looked into the very centre of their being and found that their heats are golden and licked with white flames.
Colette Power 2016
Photgraph Colette Power
