In November last year, I moved to a place near the river Schmutter, in the Greater Augsburg area. Some of you may remember my posts, and pictures, on ‘Leaving Ammersee’ from last year. Given the spectacular Ammersee lake and those sunsets – those sunsets! – it was difficult to imagine then how I would take to my new surroundings. Indeed, it has taken time for me to settle – still many unpacked boxes in the cellar! – but at least I have started going out for walks in the vicinity.

Almost next door, there are the Schmutter meadows: a nature reserve marshland by the river Schmutter (a tributary to the Danube), which is flooded several times each year. The soil is enriched by the flooding, and meadows become home to numerous rare plants, birds, and other animals.

And here, in the local marshland, its grassy paths, sludgy mud, numerous water channels, sluices, and flooded pools, the river itself twisting and turning, I have found beauty, again! This is a beauty I can neither own nor grasp in one go, i.e., in one picture, in one season, or one year. It is a beauty that develops, changes; a fragile, weather-beaten, marshland eco-system that I can only experience piecemeal on my walks through it.

If you have the time, take a look at this picture and haiku, imagine walking by the Schmutter. I will be posting more pictures from this area and writing haiku responding to my walks in the future. Am I trying to make this area ‘mine?’ Perhaps I am! You can come along for the experience.

Better still, choose an area near your own home, observe it, write about or take pictures of it, and turn it into your ‘most beautiful thing.’

This post is written in response to Fiona Robyn’s call for writers to write (and blog) about what they consider to be their most beautiful thing: a ‘blogsplash’ . In the context of her launching her new novel ‘The Most beautiful Thing,’ Fiona is making the novel available for free on the 24th and 25th of April 2012. Visit her blog for details here