When the lovely desert bird of paradise so common hereabout dehisces with a loud snap, the dry pod ejects a half dozen seeds. Simultaneously and instantaneously both halves of the pod assume a curled-up contour...

...stimulating a mystical sense of awe, as:

Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me, even in the scenes which we are accustomed to call wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to me and humanest was not a person nor a villager, that I thought no place could ever be strange to me again–Thoreau, Walden

dalehileman