I found these out by the pond, tucked into the shaded mulch behind the house. Tiny. Easy to miss. The kind of thing you only notice if you happen to be looking down at exactly the right square inch of the world. They're some sort of fungi - I looked it up later - but in the moment I didn't care about the science. I just went in for a closer look. Some of them are little tan oysters, cracked open just enough to show a pearl inside. Some are open bowls, holding three or four perfect gray pebbles like an offering. Some have a tight white seal pulled across the top, still keeping their secrets. Some are just little ridged cups, empty, waiting for whatever wants to settle in next. I love them because they can be whatever you need them to be. Bowls of treasure. Tiny tide pools. Fairy cups left out after a banquet. Oysters with their pearls still in them. A whole forgotten table setting, scaled down to thimble-size, that the mushrooms and the rain were having all to themselves before I came along. They aren't bright. They aren't loud. They aren't the kind of thing anyone is going to spray-and-shine and put on the front of a garden magazine. They're brown and quiet and maybe the size of pencil erasers. And they are full of detail — every single one of them, every ridged rim, every little pearl, every hidden chamber — full of detail that you can only see if you slow down enough to get close. I think that's the whole lesson of macro photography for me, lately. The world is absolutely packed with small, generous things. Most of them won't wave you down. You have to be the one who stops. When you do, the mulch turns into a banquet hall, and the fungi turn into bowls of whatever you need. This day (and most days!), I needed pearls.