Glass bright
Transparent
Light
Sparkle and shine
Malleable
Ground, sand
Melted silica
Moulded and pressed
Strong and brittle
Cast and blown
Overwhelmed
By its beauty
Glass
Tag: Silica
Fern fronds
Ferns are ancient plants. They predate flowering plants. You can find fossils of them in the carboniferous era. They propagate, not by seed, but by spores which are held on the underside of the leaves. In sporediea. They are discharged into the air and are blown away by the wind. From there they create tiny ferns, I can’t remember the exact details because its over forty years since I learnt about them. All I can say is I must look it up. I do know they have silica in their cells and can be toxic to cattle and sheep.
Ferns are beautiful, they have lovely spiral fronds which then unfurl. There are different colours shapes and sizes. I know that some people have gardens full of ferns. I obviously need to find out more.
Sea and sand
Build your castles on the sand and they might be washed away. Water creeps or washes in. It sinks down under the sand. The beach quakes. The rocks fall….
What is sand? Silica, ground up rock and shells. Sand can be melted into glass, a solid once liquid. Fused in heat either through vulcanism, lightening (did you know when lightening strikes damp sand it can melt a branching path through it, like plant roots?). Humans also build kilns and create glass to be blown or fused or slumped.
The sea washes or crashes in to a beach. Longshore drift pushes sand and rock sideways and along a coast. In a severe storm sand can be stripped off a beach completely, and yet it can equally be washed back again.
The world warms, water rises, sand washes away, cliffs crumble, castles crumble.
Life changes and evolves.
Mallaband-Brown 