Macro

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. (Genesis 8:22)

Every summer it happens. The spring flowers are long gone, and the bright yellow-green of the leaves has darkened and begun to hint at the golds, oranges, reds, and browns to come. It's hot, too hot to stay outside long, and the sun beats down into the dust and the soon-dying grass. Even the humidity seems to be evaporating for good, and the afternoon thunderstorms have ceased their daily visits.

Still, there is new life. As I walked my familiar old work trail yesterday, I saw the springing up of new flowers, the late-late-summer flowers, mostly small, mostly yellow, mostly with dozens of petals each. They thrive in the heat, these summer flowers, clustering in the tall grasses alongside the hot, dusty trail. I'd broken a sweat early in my walk, but still I stopped for pictures. Because these flowers--some would call them weeds--have their own late-summer beauty.

I don't have a macro lens, but I love it when my "word for the day" on this blog is "Macro." Because then I can keep my eyes open more than usual, looking for the smallest miracles, trying (albeit not always successfully) to snap a photo to share with friends.

I don't know what kind of flower this is. After a half-dozen tries, though, I finally got the clarity I wanted. It was worth the effort.

I did a little research, and I think this is a Carolina false-dandelion (Pyrrhopappus carolinianus).