Death in the garden

Sometimes decay can be beautiful. I walked the garden one day looking for dried and cracked textures, for discarded parts, for nature in a state of decomposition. For something different than I usually look for. There is so much to see when when you look beyond the fresh bloom at the beginning of life. This was a a wonderful reminder to observe more than the obvious: flowers and butterflies are beautiful in all their colorful glory, and so are brown branches and brittle dry flower petals.

Of course, all of these dead and dying things are fodder for other life: ants, fruit flies, centipedes, and worms all feed on them. Rain and wind, friction and feet, biting mouths and digestive tracts break them down until they are dirt again.

And sometimes, before that happens, a creature will gather these shed strands, forgotten fragments, and castoff clumps into soft shelters for new life to be born.