"Vanity of vanities; all is vanity... One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever."
— Ecclesiastes 1:2, 4
In childhood, when you do not yet know how everything works, it is easier to see things as they are.
The realm is full of noise. Knights ride out in search of glory, kings count their treasure, heralds shout news from square to square. Every few weeks something great is about to happen, and the whole village runs to see it: the grown-ups, the dogs and the barefoot children, all at once.
One boy never runs. He lives in the green. Every morning he climbs into the bush behind the houses and stands there so still, so long, that the leaves forget he is not one of them. Nobody calls him; nobody notices him. Like a grey crow on a grey roof, he is simply part of the place.
It is not fear and it is not shyness. He loves what grows: the smell of the leaves, the light coming through them, the slow, patient life of plants that never hurry anywhere. The great stories of the realm pass by him like weather. He watches them, serious and attentive, and does not step into them.
That is how he keeps himself. Everyone who ran after the noise became part of someone else's tale. He stayed in the green and stayed his own.
"As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand."
— Ecclesiastes 5:15
(Fine Art Photography. Created in 2014.)
