by Artist Eye
I was recently in the right place at the right time to see some Bog Coppers enjoying their brief season in the sun. Unlike their ubiquitous cousins, the American Coppers, these dark beauties only breed once and are usually only seen for a few weeks of the summer. Tiny transient out-pourings of God’s extravagance.
The fourth century writer known as Pseudo-Dionysius, referring to God as the Beautiful, wrote: “Beauty is the great creating cause which bestirs the world and holds all things in existence. . . . [It] is the Cause toward which all things move, since it is the longing for beauty which brings them into existence.”
The Coppers beat their wings gently as they dodge the light and shadows of the swampy vegetation surrounding their bog. Watching that frail beauty, I imagine that they are part of the whole creation groaning and longing for that New Day which Beauty will win.