With nothing left to remember, To have my heart as bare As a tree in December; Resting, as a tree rests After its leaves are gone... But still, oh so still While the winds come and go... And heedless, heedless If anyone pass and see On the white page of the sky Its thin black tracery."
"Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away." - Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD)
And so, we pause to savour small beauties while in their sphere, whether they be of time or of what surrounds us.
“But in a still life,
there is no end to our looking, which has become allied with the gaze of the
painter; we look in and in, to the world of things, in their ambiance of cool
or warm light, in and in, as long as we can stand to look, as long as we take pleasure
in looking.” - Mark Doty
"It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others—a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive." - C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew