I
I see the twisted, stunted dogwood bloom
with blossoms white and of the palest pink
against a wooded hill in shaded gloom:
No greater beauty is, than this, I think.
Yet I recall sequoias in the sky,
and slender redwood giants by the sea,
the ponderosas on the mountains high,
and regal cypress with a court of knees.
The trees I’ve seen in every climate seem
to grace their scenes with beauty unsurpassed.
By what aesthetic standard may I deem
that one is less or greater than the last?
Their grace I may admire but not begrudge:
The trees were never made for me to judge.
II
An ocean stretched around me, sky to sky.
Translucent green resolved to opaque blue:
With distance as a prism for my eye,
I saw each sequent wave unique in hue.
The plains rise up in flowing robes of gold
with sparkling threads of winding sapphire streams.
Their emerald garters gather rolling folds
where blooms in garnet and of amber gleam.
The rolling seas and waves of prairie grass
beneath their vaulted skies of endless blue
would overwhelm me with horizons vast
if not for gifts of minute beauty, too.
When views exceed the limits of my eyes
exquisite grace in finitude still lies.
III
I am a human of a certain kind
that gave its forms and features to my own.
I love the beauty of my race defined
by qualities I share in flesh and bone.
We see through eyes of hazel, brown and blue,
from faces ebon black to ivory white.
We say this form or that is beauty true
when blind to all but native culture’s sight.
Yet humankind exists in multitudes
of multifaceted diversity.
The concepts of our race’s pulchritude
are as diverse as our humanity.
The beauty of our kind with all its grace
is found in every kind of human face.
Author notes
The great American plains with their vast horizons have not been far from my door for most of my life. I love their llanos, rolling hills and grasslands green or gold depending on the season. I have been to sea surrounded by blue above below and on every side, but with no single color at my feet or to the farthest edge of sight. It has been my good fortune to enjoy the stillness of marshy glens and deep forests, the magnificence of breath-taking mountains and the stark grace of desert canyons.
My heritage is American, with the blood of British, Cherokee and Choctaw nations mixed in my veins, surging from my heart. My extended family of marriage and blood includes the genetic legacy of Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia and the peoples of America. I have heard voices I could not understand but thrilled to hear with their cadences from lips, tongue and throat unheard in my own native English. The hands and arms of love and good will which have touched mine have been of every hue from ivory white to ebon black.
I cannot judge beauty, but I will love it.
Peripatic, aka Ben Mosley
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