One of Hans Neumann's Dogs

No day ever feels finished. For the love of tangerines, I take pause. Were it not for your dark, piercing eye and black nose, I'd have looked right through you.

"Jungbullen auf der Weide" by Hans Neumann

I feel the world is turned sideways. I am lying down now, the side of my face pressed against the flattened grass. If I don't hold still I might fall down into the blue.

"Swans" by Hans Neumann

A black mask pops out of the cool and faded blue shadows. Another mask off to the side heads out of the frame. There is slow, steady movement. Gliding with gentle ripples all around. The sun rises into a hazy sky. Most of the horizon is a solid block of grey-blue. The swans seem to float out of that fog of backlit landscape.

Every time I find myself faced with a great body of water, I stare and feel that I am witnessing an event which is deeply profound, but unfolding at such a glacial pace that I will never understand it or be present for more than a sliver of its duration. Perhaps it is because all animal life emerged from the great, watery blue. Perhaps it is because we are mostly water still, and somehow it feels we belong there, despite the fact that we'd shrivel and drown. Perhaps that feeling is simply what comes from simultaneously facing such excruciating beauty and death.

It is all a facade. It will all fade away like fog, like mist. Beauty. Presence. Life. Soak it in as much as you can while you are here and it is in front of your eyes. Soak it in, because soon enough it will be gone.