To See Heaven in a Wild Flower

To see the world in a grain of sand,

And heaven in a wild flower,

To hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

- from "Augeries of Innocence" by William Blake

Welcome to spring! Spring officially began at 11:34am today. While this doesn't actually guarantee nice weather (there's still snow in the forecast for Edmonton), it does bring with it a sense of hope. Winter must end eventually and we have crosed the line into the "sooner" rather than "later" category. Plus, there is now more and more daylight and that always brightens my spirits.

I took this picture in the Muttart Conservatory on Canada Day last summer. I thought it was an appropriate first day of spring picture. The promise of new life in the buds, the flowery-ness, the pretty color...I really enjoy this picture.

As for the poem that I've titled the post after, the first stanza of Blake's "Augeries of Innocence" is beautiful and seems so appropriate for this image. In some sense, I feel like this stanza also captrues one of the things that fascinates me the most about photography: the ability to look at things closely and in new ways and through this to see beauty and significance in the smallest things and moments.