shards

Stepping out of the building after a meeting in Boston on Wednesday, I enjoyed the warmth and fresh air of the Spring afternoon. I was startled, therefore, to see what appeared to be clumps and shards of ice on the ground. (Certainly there had been ice in that very spot not so long ago, but to my knowledge, there had been no new ice since the thaw.) As it turn out, it was a shattered glass bottle. The clear glass glittered in the sunlight, and was full of interesting patterns and lines.

Naturally I had to stop and stoop to take some photos.

These bits look a bit like crystal.

This afternoon, Phoebe and I went for a walk down the street to deliver the last two boxes of Girl Scout cookies that had been ordered. (Sales finished weeks ago, but we had not managed to find this family at home on days when we were delivering.) Phoebe wore some shoes she hadn’t worn since winter had come, a pair of sparkly high-top sneakers to complement her colorful spring choice of outfit. Unfortunately, her feet had grown since last she wore the shoes, and by the time we arrived at the house to deliver cookies, she realized that she was getting blisters. It was a beautiful, sunny warm day, so I let her take her shoes off and walk barefoot. Because of this, we were both on the lookout for hazards to bare feet. It is entirely possible that we might otherwise not have noticed the broken bits of glass we passed. (Case in point: I did not notice any broken glass on the way out, when Phoebe had her shoes on.)

In any case, we not only noticed the glass, but we stopped to look more closely at it.

(And, naturally I took some photos.)

This one looks here like a chunk of amethyst, but its color seemed to change from different angles, sometimes clear, sometimes, gray.

Of course, this is not first time I’ve posted photos of broken glass…