Evanescent

sounds just like the briefly passing essence of what it describes

Photo: © David Whyte

In our deep contemplation of what is astonishingly here and then just as suddenly, astonishingly gone, lies the understanding of how incredibly high are the stakes with which we play…

EVANESCENT

sounds just like the briefly passing essence of what it describes: something ephemeral, fleeting, fugitive, just beyond our grasp. Evanescent is a word whose beauty allows us to appreciate and touch for a moment what we can never halt in every poignantly, fateful, disappearance we are privileged to witness: the fall of white petals across a windscreen, the invisible race of wind behind it, our breath suddenly spiralling in the cold interior of a frosted car; or the clouds racing over our unheeding heads in a passing rain storm, the sudden, fleeting memory of an old desire, now no longer felt, but leaving a trace, an aftermath, like the way a constant wind leaves a slight bend in the gnarled trunk of an ancient tree. Evanescent means something is here and then gone but also, something that has unaccountably changed something inside us, just by its passing presence. 

The evanescent always leaves a trace in our memory: the first time and even the first micro-moment, felt deep inside our chest, in which we found the courage to tell someone how much we loved them: and in response, that passing shadow appearing and disappearing in the hearer’s smile.