Month: September 2017

“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.” This is an instant, a unity of my mind and my heart, when only the power of beauty is able to merge the two into one. Only beauty is able to open my own heart and make me see my own self without the mirror.  

Donelle Dreese – Five Poems   Earth Mothers They came in early spring. They asked the...

Emily Bowles – Three Poems   Unearthing Your Name, Its Roots You chose the name,...

As long as we are at least partly receptive, when we encounter genuine beauty, in any of its forms, its power temporarily overrides our default consciousness (which is often only a rote semi-consciousness) and, for a period of time that feels halted, it reconfigures our perceptions, our emotions, our points of view, our intellect. It is as if some of the atoms of a beautiful form enter us and some of ours enter it in a transaction that creates a most personal, intimate experience.  

When I think of beauty, I think of music.  Mozart, Beethoven, Bach.  That kind of music.  Well, it’s been my day job for a long time.  If I could write a poem that does what the opening measures of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande do, I would pay myself a million bucks.  I spent fifteen years writing a poem called Goldberg-Variations that comes from the pov of a piece of music.