Fragments From Floyd

This is the last "autumn foliage" image of the season, taken several weeks ago. The leaves are gone now. And I look out my window this morning and remember how, when I see the bare maple trunks, branches and twigs against the flat, gray-blue morning sky, I see an inverted respiratory system: tracheal trunk, bronchial branches, bronchiolar twigs, and missing alveolar leaves.

This is not a metaphor most folks would connect with. Comparing outdoor nature to internal anatomy may not go far with readers, but I warn you: there will likely be more of it in coming months. I begin teaching Anatomy and Physiology in January. I begin preparing for it now.

Who knows what turns my thoughts and words will take? Will thinking deeply about internal ecology make for new ways of seeing the world through the lens of my camera? Will the focus on human architecture and feedback loops and pathways of metabolism illuminate the present semester's focus on ecosystems, environmental health and extinction? Who can say.

There are webs of connection through all of biology. Cells, organs, organ systems, the Organism. Creatures, populations of creatures, communities of them, then ecosystems and the biosphere. It is impossible for me not to be amazed by it all. It will be a challenge to pass this amazement along to students in six weeks.