The Beautiful Changes
One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides
The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies
On water; it glides
So from the walker, it turns
Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you
Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.
The beautiful changes as a forest is changed
By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;
As a mantis, arranged
On a green leaf, grows
Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves
Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.
Your hands hold roses always in a way that says
They are not only yours; the beautiful changes
In such kind ways,
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.
-Richard Wilbur
I stopped by the rose garden today, knowing that they also had sunflowers. I was looking for the beauty in the faded stalks and found a lot. This photo in particular tells the story with the shapes and colors of the sepals which are only enhanced by the bokah and the slight pop of purple from one of the roses which are still happily blooming away. And I didn’t even see the fine filaments of the spider web until I got it out of the camera. I so love it when the camera shows me something I did not see with my eye. And I think Mr. Wilbur’s poem captures the same message I was going for. The beautiful changes as it ages but it still remains beautiful in a new way.