Chatting with my friend L in Washington Square Park on Friday, I was enchanted by some fresh green garlands of seeds on our bench, so I went back today to see if I could find some. One obliged me...
The tree from which it hailed, looming high overhead and backlit by midday sun, is a Siberian elm. In this season, these are among the trees that look to be overflowing with flowers or early foliage... 
The samaras of a nearby tree were dried and fluttered along the path below. Looking closer I found them scattered wherever a puff of breeze might send them, like a blanket of crepe paper snowflakes.
The scale of it confounds me, puts me in mind, in fact, of the theophany of Job by way of Kant's theory of the sublime. Job's God conveys the majesty and otherness of the sacred through animals
Each of these samaras, light as a breath and nearly as transparent, contains a tree. But also: how many tens of thousands are produced each year by each tree, as good as none of which will become trees?
