In Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, first performed in 1971, the doubting Celebrant goes temporarily mad and intentionally smashes liturgical items and sings:
Look.
Isn’t that odd?
Glass shines brighter
When it’s broken.
I never noticed that before.
How easily things get broken.
– “Things get broken”*
Windshields aren’t easily broken, but it’s possible with a sledge hammer or a careening vehicle. :-)
I remembered those lyrics when a shattered one caught my eye in the back lot of a nearby junk yard. The nuggets resembled raw aquamarine gems. I also liked how the blue-green shards seemed to be emerging from or returning to the tan sand. A larger, more detailed version of the photo is here.
*The song at YouTube in two parts starts here. Also hear commentary about Mass performed at Carnegie Hall in 2008: Choose audios at bottom of this page: either ”XVI. Fraction: Things Get Broken” (3-min) or the full work (30-min).
As a former gemologist (in a previous life) I will attest to the fact that it most certainly does look like aquamarine in its natural form. Gives you that ashes to ashes feeling. Beautiful!
- Denise
[...] I found beautiful things in the rubble, miniature abstract compositions containing rich textures and color. Here are three, but I will post more at a later time. Jagged glass catches light in specular ways as I previously noted in another Words4It post. [...]