Sunday, February 24, 2013

First crocuses, 2013

What, after all, do parents owe their young that is more important than a warm and trusting connection to the Earth that accounts for our evolutionary history? 
Theodore Roszak
The Voice of the Earth




I just took this photograph.
No photograph, of course, can do justice to a flower.

If a child learns about crocuses from a picture, that child will know what a picture allows it to know.
No more. No less.

If a child truly knows a crocus, as a crocus, then that child's heart might dance a few decades from now, when he sees the first blooming crocus marking winter's near end, even though he's at an age where boundless promises of what will be give way to entropy and age.

If a parent cannot do this, maybe a teacher can.




2 comments:

Kathryn J said...

I have seen a crocus up here in the frozen north but my snowdrops which are usually first are well buried.

This whole post made me smile and I needed it on the first full day back from break. My 9th-grade students were especially uninterested in anything related to environmental science today.

Unknown said...

"If a child learns about crocuses from a picture, that child will know what a picture allows it to know.
No more. No less."

Those words are haunting.