I took this photo last Sunday as I walked along the beachfront with my grandchildren.
Everyone enjoys the beach in spring or summer, when the weather’s warm, but the beach in Autumn and winter is majestic. the sea is more furious, the colours are bolder, and the promise of long lazy days is alluring. This pair of baby palm trees seem to be huddled together, keeping themselves warm and sheltered from the merciless colder seasons.
****
The theme pairs, reminds me, once again, of another one of Emily Dickinson’s most famous poems about a ‘pair of nobodies’:
I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there ‘s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They ‘d banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Emily’s poems were published posthumously (except one or two published in literary magazines in her lifetime). She wished to remain unknown, probably even a recluse. Some modern researchers have even identified a degree of agoraphobia in her later years.
In this poem, Emily claims to be ‘nobody’ and asks the reader if he/she is nobody too, so writer and reader are united in their anonymity, which they must fight to preserve, because if they dare to become ‘public’ or well-known, they’d be like frogs living in bogs. Evidently, she thought very little of fame and fortune!
****
Check out Hugh’s blog and some of the other pictures and reflections on pairs here
