Underneath the Surface

Yesterday I found a hollyhock on the roadside. It had grown there on it's own, and it was not planted or cared for by anyone. But it has become one of the awesome wonders of nature. Lets get a closer look.

Its rather wilted on the edges, but the splendor of the color is evident. Lets look under the surface, a little deeper.

Now it no longer looks wilted, but the color and the symmetry of the lines give it a beautiful appearance. A little deeper.

It isn't a dusty little flower by the roadside anymore. The cloudy, pale color at the very middle of the flower, getting darker and stronger as it goes further. The lines are all perfectly placed. The pearly green and the light, pale pollen in the center give a finishing touch. It looks like mother-of-pearl inside. Use your imagination and picture it as a fairy tree from the Midsummer Night's Dream with yellow leaves. There are so many words we can describe it with. Beautiful, fantastic, awesome. The true character of the flower is underneath the surface. This is normally missed, and we only see the surface. But when you get underneath the surface, the whole world changes. We too often pass the details over and miss the real picture. I think that whoever named this flower 'hollyhock' must have not looked very far beneath the surface. It deserves a much more romantic name that echoes its true beauty. But I suppose there isn't anything we can do about that except try to find the other side of everything ourselves.