“Harmony”

“He noticed a quaint orchestration of elements: the color of her blue dress and the orange butterfly wings were complementary; a pygmy nuthatch, which had emerged from the cloaking branches, wore a coat of blue a shade darker than her dress, a neck white as the clouds, and a head the same color as the tree bark; the position of the three traced a perfect isosceles triangle. What was more, the clouds visible between the openings in the tree branches created, on a larger scale, the same polka dot pattern seen on the wings of the butterfly. All these elements might have been posed by a talented painter, one who painstakingly lifts the chin of the model, carefully maneuvers the flowers in her hands, and delicately pulls the fabric of her dress, all to achieve the effect the artist intends. But the man knew that all this natural alignment occurred without anyone or anything giving the matter a moment’s thought. Around souls such as his mate’s, the worldly pigments arranged themselves spontaneously to create a marvelous whole. Incongruities gave way to harmony; clashes of hue resolved into complementarities; frictions got smoothed: and it all just happened, as his mother would have said, ‘as easy as pie.'”