Category: Poetry

Defining beauty is an impossible task, doomed from the start. This is because the very moment of its apprehension defies comprehension. In the same instant when I perceive, with my senses, the rustle of a red leaf, notes from a cello, or a body’s cello-like perfection, the possibility of any complete understanding disappears.

Beauty is always fresh and fantastical, even when the subject is ordinary and familiar. We discover beauty if what is known becomes strange—as phantasmagorical as if we had never seen it before. The unwonted is wanted. Beauty may be ordered and symmetrical or it may be angular, jagged, and asymmetrical.

I work in an organic garden where I work closely with small beneficial insects like ladybugs, lacewings, praying mantis, and worms, companion plants such as marigolds, and composting. Since I work with seed and save generations of seeds, I try to work with the balance of nature.

As I have gotten older my notions of beauty have drifted away from aesthetic universals.  Beauty for me now is simple ravishment.  A sudden unexpected gasp of surrender to a sense-based awareness, often visual but also tactile, aural and even olfactory.

The world of nature is abundantly giving and beautiful. It is also pure and liberating. I believe that beauty lies in the ability to transact with our natural world as kindly and peacefully as possible. It is also about being grateful for all it offers us, treating it with dignity and respect.