“[A body] belongs to the world of love, which is a world of living creatures, natural orders and cycles, many small, fragile lights in the dark.”
Wendell Berry – from “Health is Membership”
Reflection: The Bull Thistle
By Vincent H. Anastasi 2022
Magenta flames stopped me on my way, burning on the spiny base of rigid, yellow-tipped spears - a forbidding sphere - transforming the tar and chipped road into holy ground. Unlike the clumsy Norse invader who, barefoot, alerted the Scots with one unfortunate step, I came upon the thistle prepared to attack hole fourteen, armed only with a bag of discs. Wooed by beauty, I drew near, rejecting your quotidian existence, your noxious reputation. Ah! Living herald! Alert us of your presence, draw us like the swallowtail and goldfinch to feast upon your flora, and illuminate the way to wonder, one "small, fragile light in the dark."
the deepening ground 