Nature's First Green

Nature's First Green
Originally uploaded by randubnick

Today was very warm and humid until an afternoon rainstorm cooled things off. It was so warm that some of the trees are starting to leaf out. I was admiring my neighbor's tree from my upstairs window and decided to take some pictures with my digital camera. This is the best of the bunch. I always think of a Robert Frost poem when the trees leaf out, hence the title which is a phrase from the poem. These early leaves do look like flowers, in golden green, as Frost suggests. Some people emphasize this poem's pessimism about the transience of youth and beauty, but I like to point out that Frost has actually captured this moment in his poetry and made it last forever. Giving the fleeting beauty of nature, one choice is to despair. Another choice is to appreciate a beautiful moment, capture it, and turn it into art. I think that was Frost's choice, and here is his poem:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.