The End of Beauty

We would stand on the lawn looking up

like the opening scene of an alien show

every day.

We looked strange, I knew,

but I couldn’t help wondering where

the neighbors were—

how could they ignore this?

As other-worldly as an alien

invasion or a Raphael,

as fleeting as childhood

and immortality,

a gift fit for gods

but we live close enough to peek

to taste the spilled ambrosia

to see the colors altered

by an altered sky.

Why would we go past this,

go beyond—to what?

We don’t believe in a beyond-truth or

a beyond-goodness, but past

doesn’t always mean surpassed:

maybe we’ve just missed our turn?

Maybe if we stand on the lawn,

they’ll notice us, and no one

will overshoot their destination

or at least they can make a u-turn

at the end of the street,

pull over before

they give up and deem beauty medieval,

antiquated,

before they decide we’re too wise for thunder gods

and roses. I used to walk past

them, there at the front of the grocery store

where penitent and forgetful men can buy

redemption

before they get to the chips and soda

and forget.

I used not to notice;

they’re not advertised, after all, to women.

We’re meant to walk past,

Distracted by children and grocery lists,

beautiful bursting blossoms

invisible to us

(except for office parties,

customs of social investment,

when we walk into a separate place

with petty cash

and make petty choices

for the requisite office acknowledgements).

We manage to see

past beauty

even when it surrounds us.

But if you stop to touch or smell,

you'll find roses

are soft like silk

and hold memory like picture books,

like the soft folds of my grandmother’s face.

How did we ever start with stone and papyrus,

when the touch of a rose petal holds

more memory and allusion

than a library filled with coded paper,

when it must have been that way

in Egypt, too?

But we’ve gone beyond beauty. Why?

Because we’ve found something better?

Never.

We in this century have realized that dancing in the rain,

leaning over to sniff the rose,

touching the shiny flow of silk

and satin in the fabric store,

the use of exclamation marks!

Sensory stimulations are childish,

And the worst thing in this post-modern world

is a child.