Shakespeare Challenge: chaos and old age

magnolia iolanthe

I’ve been wanting to photograph this for ages. But the weather has always been against me, whenever I’ve decided ‘this is it’. And now today has to be it - it probably won’t be there, this time tomorrow.

But it’s not just the weather. I’ve always tried too hard for perfection; I see a bud, snap away and only in the comfort of my study, do I see on my computer screen a withered or generally manky petal, that I had not noticed earlier in the viewfinder. And so that day’s effort is discarded. Which is daft really - nature is not perfect by any means. Beautiful, yes. But perfect? No. Which is why, I guess, we do well to take nature as we find it.

This is the last bud; the rest are either gone altogether or hanging on by a thread. This one already shows the signs of old age - brown spots begin to disfigure the petals, suggesting the end is on its way. Maybe not old age in terms of the life of a magnolia tree, but certainly chaos and old age as far as this year’s blooming season is concerned.