The Role of Color

Flowers come in all sorts of colors. And those colors dye the earth beautifully with each of the four seasons. Forever healed by a talent we could never imitate, I count myself happy beyond measure.

The other day, a certain piece of news reached my ears: a blue rose developed by a certain company had become the first flower ever to win Japan’s Good Design Grand Award. And yet, when I actually stood before that rose, it struck me as almost a manufactured flower. It is a terribly rude thing to say of a life that gifted engineers poured their hearts into creating, but I simply cannot see it any other way.

I am reminded of something once said by my late and much-respected teacher of botany: “Plants don’t have much need for the color blue. After all, the sky and the sea took it for themselves.” Gazing up at the blue sky, I recall that teacher’s smile with fondness.