By Hand: A Meditation on a New Year of Gifts

Drawing by the author, May 3, 2009

By Hand

If I follow this line, will it lead anywhere?
If I start at the root, will I capture the outline of the tree?
If this is not beautiful, can it still be art?
If I ask you to read this, would it be enough?

If I start with black, will I end up with purple?
If I make fifty lines, will the next patch be eighty lines?
If I make a curve here, will the next shape be linear?
If I make downward strokes, will I then make upward strokes?

If I don't think, will the drawing draw itself?
If I breathe deeply, is it meditation?
If there are no words, is it a poem?
If these are the leaves, is there a tree?
------------------------------------------------

When was the last time you made something by hand? I drew the drawing above in 2009. This was significant to me. I had just lost a baby. It was an ectopic pregnancy and I was on maternity leave. I remember painting, too, after my first miscarriage in 2005. For some reason, the loss of life spurred a very deep need in me to create something with my hands. It was an expression of grief. And hope.

I thought back to this because I mentioned on Facebook, today, that I wanted to go back to an artisanal life: a time when we enjoy well-made things (not mass-made things), well cared-for things, things that last for lifetimes. It's not about a consumerist life but a life that combines art and work...when work is finally not something that has to do with money but something to do with full self-expression and service to others. Then no one would have a job, just a vocation. Then everyone would have a gift to give to life and life would only have abundance to give back for every gift. Then everyone would know everyone in their community...because you would know the person who sewed your clothes, the person who wrote the books you read, the person who cooked your lovely meal, the person who repaired your chair, the person who grew the tomato in your salad, and so on and on.

I come to this as I prepare for life in 2014. I want this to be a year of gifts. Below is a video of Amanda Palmer's TED talk on the art of asking. It's the other face of giving. Because one does not give if one is not actually asked. That's the beauty of a gift: it is given from the heart...not out of obligation but out of appreciation.


I imagine a life, a world populated by gifts that people give to each other. A life that needs no copyright because each one is unique (and uniquely gifted). I imagine a world where we recognize the gifts given to us, freely, by the earth. I imagine a world full of gratitude for all these gifts. I imagine each person, each creature of God alight with gratitude.

So here's to your 2014 (and mine). May it be the beginning of a new age of gifts.

ModPo 2013 #57 Poet as Witness and Tool of Her Times: On Howe's "My Emily Dickinson"

Image of loaded gun from favim.com. 

Here's the link to an excerpt of Susan Howe's My Emily Dickinson.

Emily Dickinson, "My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -"

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun –
In Corners – till a Day
The Owner passed – identified –
And carried Me away –

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods –
And now We hunt the Doe –
And every time I speak for Him
The Mountains straight reply –

And do I smile, such cordial light
Open the Valley glow –
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through

And when at Night – Our good Day done –
I guard My Master’s Head –
‘Tis better than the Eider Duck’s
Deep Pillow - to have shared –

To foe of His – I’m deadly foe –
None stir the second time –
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye –
Or an emphatic Thumb –

Though I than He – may longer live
He longer must – than I –
For I have but the power to kill,
Without – the power to die -

------------------------------------------

This was a powerful one-two-punch of Howe's text and Dickinson's poem that seems to be the unifying theme of Howe's text. 

I liked Howe's feminist observation/ critique of how women (particularly Dickinson and Stein) get passed over by the "Canon." Well, in the case she mentions in her text, "from Harold Blood to Hugh Kenner." Was it a disadvantage for women to be artists? To be leaders? To be anyone "of consequence?" Even today that question is still being asked: for example the concept of "leaning in" (Sheryl Sandberg). If it weren't an issue, it wouldn't still be a hot topic like it is today. "Having it all" is an illusion. And despite that, I will still tell my daughter that she has options even if "mother" is a construct that has already been prepared for her since forever (or since humanity's beginning). 

This conscious questioning of "Who polices questions of grammar, parts of speech, connection, and connotation? Whose order is shut inside the structure of a sentence?" tie in directly to Dickinson's poem. "First I find myself a Slave, next I understand my slavery, finally I rediscover myself at liberty inside the confines of known necessity." This is the progression of gun unpossessed, gun possessed, gun used "speaking on behalf of Him" and then gun becoming conscious of mortality and power (liberty within the confines of known necessity). 

To be in the margins is to be in the perfect place to observe the rules, to be conscious of the rules and, eventually, to have the power to break the rules. Politics is always in flux (as is language, which is a different political arena...but political still!). To be in power is to take the status quo for granted. Emily Dickinson writes from a position of "hesitation" (as described in the text) but writes with great liberty knowing her confines. Not being published was, in fact, a great advantage to Dickinson (though it didn't discourage Stein from achieving what she did in a very public sphere). She had no one to please but herself. And that is why we are left with a text that is ahead of its time. Text that survives the death of any "master" and has such power, such dangerous power, as it resonates through time. 

I interpret "the master" or the "owner" as Dickinson's own time. She has limited agency as a weapon. She is informed, shaped by her times, largely patriarchal. In fact, the idea of hunter and gun is a very male preoccupation. And the use of "he" for hunter and "she" for gun is very sexualized. The irony isn't lost on me. This gun culture persists in America and its increasingly violent history of mass shootings (mostly by disturbed young men) is, I'm sure, not lost on all those reading Dickinson's text.

As Howe puts it: "Gun goes on thinking on the violence done to meaning. Gun watches herself watching." Violence done to meaning! What an amazing couple of lines. The poet will always be "used" by her times, by the material that she constructs. She does not choose what she is born into. But she who speaks "for" her times is a tool that will never die, that will outlast her times. "Kill" of course has the twin of "spare" and any tool that deals with death also deals with life. I also observe that Dickinson never refers to "her life" as playing a part of a victim. The loaded gun is both witness and tool. The tool points the way and shapes the user (even as the user utilizes the tool)...in the same way that the world is a nail for the hammer. The tool, in this instance, is a gun. It's a curious metaphor to use for a poet's life but it is very Dickinsonian to use a loaded metaphor. 

So, thank you to Susan Howe for this vital appreciation of Dickinson both as a woman and a poet, a loaded gun of her times.

ModPo 2013 #51: The Doing, The Ends To The Means, And a Third Alternative: On Berrigan's "3 Pages"

Image from EliteDaily.com.

3 Pages
BY TED BERRIGAN
For Jack Collom

10 Things I do Every Day

                              play poker
                              drink beer
                              smoke pot
                              jack off
                   curse

BY THE WATERS OF MANHATTAN

                               flower

      positive & negative

go home

          read   lunch   poems

               hunker down

    changes

                  Life goes by
                                        quite merrily
                                                               blue
                        NO HELP WANTED
                               
                                 Hunting For The Whale

                   “and if the weather plays me fair
                               I’m happy every day.”

                     The white that dries clear
                     the heart attack
                     the congressional medal of honor
                     A house in the country

                     NOT ENOUGH

Information from PoetryFoundation.org: Ted Berrigan, "3 Pages" from The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan. Copyright © 2005 by Ted Berrigan.  Reprinted by permission of University of California Press.

Source: The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan (University of California Press, 2005)
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, this poem is wacky and carefree. It starts out funny, listing even jacking off as an everyday activity. In a way, the poem is flipping off the conventional, conformist life. I come very close to ten when I list down the things he does every day, counting only the verbs:

1. play
2. drink
3. smoke
4. jack off
5. curse
6. flower
7. go home
8. read
9. hunker down

But then, Berrigan deliberately holds off the tenth to give way to NOT ENOUGH as a statement against a conformist everyday life as alternatives to what to do. 

There was that note on the folk song which explains the lines "if the weather plays me fair/ I'm happy every day." I was mystified by Hunting For The Whale. I'm glad I found the note on Moby Dick, a metaphor for finding one's place in the universe. Also, what's 3 pages? Is that page 1 = doing something every day, page 2 = partial doing, partial list of cultural references that are available in society, page 3 = nouns, effects (of the causes)? The End = Not Enough? The Poem Talk recording says that the poem is printed on 2 pages and not 3, hinting at the way the poems always comes up short. 

The list of nouns (versus the verbs of what the speaker does) at the end of the poem shows destinations of conformity: the glue drying (I don't know how white turning clear is a symbol of conformity, though, is that a symbol for publication or having a new home or a suburban garage project?), the heart attack (how many people have we heard of who died while suffering stress on the job, right?), the congressional medal of honor (another death, but this time on the battlefield), and a house in the country (and the attendant mortgage, right?).  I like the juxtaposition of "doing" and "results." These are two different modes of being. There is a life lived for the ends: a house in the country, a vacation, a feeling of having arrived, a medal, a promotion. And there is a life of doing something every day, a life of action. 

I liked that little side note in Poem Talk about how Jack Collom is a self-published poet who wrote to Ted Berrigan about "dailiness" or the activity of writing a poem daily. It made be laugh a bit. Because I'm a terribly self-conscious self-published poet (who always doubts how she is actually a poet). And this Berrigan poem about rejecting a traditional, get-a-job-kind-of-life and his admonishment to write really speaks to me. 

I also like that it's a life of choices. But he says, in the end: NOT ENOUGH. Is that a comment on the life choices of an American? Is that a comment on his own life? Is he seeking a third alternative? I'm haunted by that last line. It could be a statement for greediness. But I doubt that's what Berrigan is talking about. Despite the opportunity to flower positive & negative by the waters of Manhattan... the alternatives are not enough. It begs something. And it's worth pondering on. 

I end with the image that I chose for this post. It's a picture from EliteDaily.com to describe Manhattan under water after Hurricane Sandy. I think it's a fitting image for the poem because it mentions "by the waters of Manhattan" and also Moby Dick (Hunting For The Whale). Berrigan was anti-capitalist and he saw this poem as a summing up of his works: a rejection of the conventional (capitalist) American life. We need to choose a life, though, or we go under without knowing quite why. 

ModPo 2013 #9 Condensation, Distillation, Ars Poetica: On Niedecker's "Poet's Work"

Image from host.madison.com.

Note: I am currently taking a course on Coursera.org called Modern and Contemporary American Poetry taught by Al Filreis of the University of Pennsylvania. I will be posting my thoughts on the course discussions here.

Poet's Work

by Lorine Niedecker

Grandfather

  advised me:

        Learn a trade

I learned

  to sit at desk

        and condense

No layoff

  from this

        condensery

This poem by Lorine Niedecker speaks directly to me as a poet. I have an ars poetica that runs in the same line as Niedecker's but I call it distillation (well, it has the same spirit as condensation).

I guess this is why I lean towards Dickinson in the false binary. There certainly was a time that poetry was a trade of some sort. Chap books and ballads did use to sell like hot cakes. But in the poem, Niedecker "flips off" (I like that phrase from the video discussion of the poem) the notion of trade that her grandfather is talking about. What she prefers is to sit "at desk" (a condensed phrase!) and condense (aka write poetry). It is not a trade, it is a life.

I don't want to take condensation out of context, here. It is in context of poetry. It is not mere concision or cutting down for the sake of cutting down. For me, poetry is the paring down of experience, of life, into the clearest and most concise game of words. I cannot take away the game, the play of words because that is what makes poetry what it is. It is engaging with language itself and challenging it to paint, to draw life, to draw something that matters to both the poet and the reader so that a new view is available.

Well, in conclusion, there really is no layoff in this condensery because laying off has to do with making a living and not the living of life. A poet's work is life. For me, at least, it's true.

Poetry as Life

I just got this in my inbox: Poetry's a life, not necessarily a living. I couldn't agree more. Poetry is a way of seeing. Just this morning I was thinking about the relevance of poetry. I once wrote an article about it: The Relevance of Poetry in Today's World on Suite 101. Poetry's beauty really depends on the beholder. But it's true that there aren't many readers of poetry books or of poetry in general. It's not Fifty Shades of Gray. It won't give a writer the success of a Harry Potter. But it does provide many things for the writer.

What interested me in the article from Poetry.About.Com was the way it distinguished a life from a living. A living is the way one survives or even thrives. But a life is what we truly make. It is what "the living" is for. And poetry does answer that requirement.

The life of a poet is a life of epiphanies, a life of sudden, striking realizations. It is a life dedicated to seeing beyond what is obvious or ordinary. It is a life lived groping for words to paint joy or grief or love. As Socrates says, "the unexamined life is not worth living." And that is where poetry has stepped in for me. It is framing my life for examination.

There might be a misconception that poets write when struck by inspiration. I don't think this is true. Well, there *are* moments when I cannot help but write. (There is a really great description of the muse in Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk. ) For me, it is a discipline. It is a way of distilling raw experience and turning it into something that helps me make sense of it, that inspires me, or that helps me see something that I didn't see before. In a way, I find that writing poetry is a meditation. And meditation is deliberate, it is a practice. It is not something you do when it strikes your fancy. It is clearing one's noisy mind and connecting with the numinous while still perfectly grounded on earth.

So, here is my invitation: live the poetic life. Hold your days in your hands. They will slip by forever if you do not glimpse the shining moment.

To end, I offer you a line from one of the most beautiful poems in the bible (I got this translation directly from Jeanette Winterson's description of Sonali Deraniyagala's book, Wave): "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it."

That can only be said in a poem.

Bread

Bread
by Justine C. Tajonera

My son asks me if we can visit a bakery
so we can see how bread is made.
"There are other kinds of bread, Mama, right?"
I assure him that there are. There are deliciously
heavy breads like brioche, baked with lots of
eggs and butter. There are grainy breads and
there are breads that are flat for a lack of yeast.
And I remember dismantling the word "bread."
I was on the way to an aunt's home, not much
older than my own son. I took apart the word,
saying it over and over again, marveling at how
it only stood for the thing that I ate, that left
crumbs on the plate. How could this be separate
and yet one with the thing of sustenance?
And who chose that it start with a "b" and end
with a "d?" And why does the "r" sound and feel
like the texture of the bread? At some point I felt
I did not understand the word.
And then time intervened.

So, today, for a few moments, I glimpsed
once again, how the words are the promises and
the things themselves, how the words are the story,
and the remembrance, and the life itself.

Books and Friends

Books and Friends 
by Justine Camacho-Tajonera

Two years ago, on January 16, 2010, five women, including me, started a book club. We met at Cafe Breton, Podium, Pasig City. We agreed on the rules and I think our first book was Being Happy by Andrew Matthews. Little did I know, at the time, that one of us was in need of a major dose of happiness in her life.

We tackled books like The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, The Elegance of The Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mom by Amy Chua. We purposely asked each other to expand the genres we were used to reading. Later on, we called our little club the BBC (Breton Book Club). We're not a broadcast group, we don't live in Breton...but we have this intimate space called a book club.

We don't meet as regularly anymore and from five we're now down to three. But I still cherish my book club. I learned a lot from these friends and I get to express my love for books fully with them. One of them confessed that she can't talk about books among her work friends. She craves the company of people who can talk about books...just about books and how they've expanded her life.

Just this year, my book club mates met in Paris, France (a coincidence of sorts) and sent me a lovely postcard from Montmarte, rue Foyatier. I really felt I was there with them, holding on to their cups of cafe creme and talking about going to Shakespeare & Co.

One of us says, "But it's a book club!" in retort to questions about love and other things. It is a book club...one that opens up new worlds for us and gives us windows into ourselves. I can be an unabashed bibliophile with these two. Ultimately, that's the gift that they've given me: the opportunity to be a complete nerd and talk all afternoon to evening about books, books, books...but not only that...about life and how the books have made it come alive for me. So...to my book club mates: je t'aime! I love you so. And I look forward to more and more books in our lives no matter how long it takes in between our meetings.

Picture of Cafe Breton from ph.openrice.com. 
Picture of postcard from Montmarte, rue Foyatier from the author

The Curator

by Justine Camacho-Tajonera

Breathe deeper,
look closer,
listen to how the wind shifts
leaves and curtains,
notice the subtle differences
in the blueness of the sky
this afternoon.

No one will tell you what is worth
your life
but you will know it
by the slowness
of the hands of the clock,
if you are even watching them.

These moments will come to you
in your grief,
in the stillness of your joy.

Take them one by one
as you gather corals and shells
by the seashore.
Piece them together.
The plain, the ugly, the beautiful,
they are all side by side now.
They are all yours.


Image from http://blog.illustrationcastle.com

Six Coins

by Justine C. Tajonera

Lived or spent?
The line seems so slim
as I plod through my days.

This morning, as we scrounged
for spare change
for my morning commute
we looked at each other
and laughed.

We are walking
in some dire straits
but at least we still
get to eat
our pancakes
in the morning. 

I kiss our son
and walk out
the door
keeping our laughter
warm
in my hands,
together
with the six
coins
that we
put together.

For Vier and Badger
(April 7, 2010)

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/68089733@N00/457624284

Measures

by Justine C. Tajonera

These words will travel
a distance
that I may never
track.

Even as I populate my world
with facts and things
that have
measures,
many things escape me,
fall through
the cracks,
disappear or bloom
without my
say.

I ask myself
if it will
matter as
the curtain of this world
sometimes shifts
to reveal
absurdity
or the
divine.

I will not try to
measure
love or hope
or belief

or even argue
their existence.

No, the candle is
too brief,
the stakes
too high.

There is only how
I hold you
now and the things
I say
that fills this moment
with life.

(March 24, 2010)
Image entitled "Immeasurable Proportion of the Senses" from http://www.flickr.com/photos/46425925@N00/543345583

Today

by Justine C. Tajonera

Today, you wore a
gray silk blouse
with a splash
of turquoise
and a blue Murano
glass bead bracelet
on your right
wrist.

Today, we shared
some pasta and
a colossal
cookie a la mode.

Today, we talked
about weddings
and traditions
and exotic
food.

Today was a
day before
your birthday.

I wrap these
lovely moments
together, a
short, sweet interlude
in your early
twenties,
a beautiful day
with beach weather
outside
and your life
shining and
bright.

For Kim
(Feb. 25, 2010)
Image from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Millefiori_beads,_1920s.JPG

My Word

by Justine C. Tajonera

As I watch my sleeping son,
I try to see my life stripped of speculation.
What if I did not have to wonder
about the future
because I was responsible
for everything I could do
today?

The question follows me
as I sit in front of my cup
of coffee,
scared of putting myself
behind my
word.

For it seems a grave thing:
my word.

What is it worth?
Only my life
it seems.

This is what I have.
This is what I can give
to you.
Only this, the things that I
have promised,
the things that I have
created, made
real.

I am not putting my life,
my son's life
in someone else's
hands.

No, I cannot hide
there.

I put them behind
my word.

(Feb. 10, 2010)
Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/korephotos/2944049443/

Working the Seam of our Existence

by Justine C. Tajonera

I remember the wind rushing
beneath my feet
last Friday,
riding a pedicab
to work.

I remember watching the smog,
a layer over the city,
embracing the tops of buildings,
immersing all of us
in a dark soup.

I remember making a stew
on Sunday,
smelling the simmering onions,
the tarragon, the basil,
the parsley,
the cloves
of garlic,
the dissolving flesh and bones
of chicken.

All of these under one sky,
all the beauty and despair,
all the ugliness and the euphoria,
all under one roof,
no air lighter or more fragrant
for the best of us,
no escaping the seam that
sews us into our
places.

We work the needle and
the thread,
the stove and the ladle
of our collective
existence.

There is no escaping
responsibility
in the
end.

(Feb. 8, 2010)
Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/53326337@N00/2176821524

A Boy Named Lugi

By Justine C. Tajonera

I asked him twice for his name
and he confirmed it is Lugi,
in Tagalog, shortchanged. 
Not the most auspicious
word to begin with,
not the best of introductions.

But that is his name.

And I look beyond the name
to his eyes, how they are hurt
when I imply that he is not
telling the truth.

I offer him food,
a sausage in a bun,
and he talks about his
brothers and sisters,
the life of a child
in the street.

I think of how his whole life
he will resist his name,
the struggle, the uphill climb.

Or how he might transform
his life and redefine the terms,
creating something new
out of what he has been
dealt with.

I say goodbye to this child,
wishing him abundance,
his stomach filled
and his mind with no thoughts yet
of self-fulfilling
prophecies.

(Jan. 29. 2010)
Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/bthomas1/206929136/

Two Hours in Old Breton

by Justine C. Tajonera

We met at a cafe,
exchanging stories
about books,
words like life
lines, stringing us
together.

Different women, different
lives told in the language
of books owned, lent,
lost, borrowed
and bought.

We laugh as we say,
"But it's a book club!" in
retort to questions about
love and other sundries
of life,
knowing full well
how life
is inextricable with
the books
we read.

We savor our cups
of coffee,
listening, exclaiming,
laughing
over how we've
read the same
and different
books.

(Jan. 19. 2010)
For the Breton Book Club
started last Jan. 16, 2010 at Cafe Breton, Ortigas Center

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/44362511@N00/2464795110

Tabula Rasa

by Justine C. Tajonera

When the clearing emerges
I see more things
come into
view.

I sweep away the clutter
and realize that there
is a beautiful picture
of my son
on the shelf.

When I hear the wind
and the sound of
my breathing
I create a listening
that opens not just
my ears
but my
heart.

The blankness of
serenity
is nothing like
despair,
it is a canvas
for majestic
actions
and rich tapestries
of all that is cherished
and rare.

(Jan. 19. 2010)
Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/tortipede/3735937671/

The Act of Creation: Sestina for Clea

by Justine C. Tajonera

To make something out of nothing
is a talent and a thing of pure delight
or the joy of a poet or an artist in flight.
It is the pastime of a god or a king.
It has no rhyme or reason for being.
There are no requirements for its light.

Imagine darkness and a single point of light.
Look for a force that rises from nothing.
Think of wonderful ways of being.
Bask in a toddler’s simple delight.
Feel the force of a flock of a hundred’s flight.
It would be no less than a tribute to a king.

And what would please a wizard, a master, a king?
Who would disturb an artist’s obsession with light?
Nothing would ground a creature mid flight.
Repressing one’s heart will come to nothing.
And why would one curb what brings delight?
Why would we avoid the zenith of being?

I fear and anticipate what comes into being
when a queen finds her match in a king;
when gravity and reason confront delight.
What great thing resides between shadow and light?
What mystery unfolds from existing and nothing?
I feel the longing of the wingless for flight.

For only we who have invented the tools of flight
envy the birds their natural being.
We are never content to be fated for nothing.
We want to be no less than status of king.
We want all that is hidden to be brought to light
and we spend our lives chasing delight.

No, we are never content without our delight.
We would choose the fight over flight;
We would struggle with darkness to seek the light.
It is written in our blood, in our being,
whether born merchant or pauper or king.
We are born for seeking, stopping at nothing.

This is our delight, our song of being,
It is the dream of a king, the story of flight:
To live in the light, rising from nothing.

(Jan. 15, 2010)

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/bettinatizzy/3047363756/

The Oracle

By Justine C. Tajonera


Know thyself:
it is inscribed at the entrance
of an ancient
temple in Greece.


Know your limits
and your
freedoms.


Know the lies you have told
and the thruths
you have
declared.


Know your body,
your mind,
your heart
and your
soul.


Know your strengths
and your weaknesses.


Know your words
and the thoughts
in your head.


Know that what you
remember
and what you forget
make up the life
that you love
or
regret.

The clarity of
the image that
you sculpt,
this life of yours,
is of your own
making.

Know it,
the oracle
says.

(Jan. 10, 2010)

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisjohnbeckett/566457587/

Marble relief: Achilles consulting the Oracle of Delphi, and Achilles healing Telephus with his spear (Herculaneum)

So Much Depends On Restraint

By Justine C. Tajonera

In the great battles,
so much depended on
the restraint of soldiers.
One tiny movement or
mistaken gesture might
have caused legions of men
to lose
their lives.

The same is true
for most great things
in life.
Anything huge,
awesome, majestic
in its nature
depends on the patience
of each player.

The smaller the battle,
the lesser the
discipline.

I call on my inner
royalty,
my calm and
sovereign
soul

to stand by
my choices
in this
daily war
of life.

(Nov. 22, 2009)

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/42602676@N00/3256865393 by user feserc.

The Equal Parts of Aesthetic Beauty

By Justine C. Tajonera

They come into view at a mall:
beautiful man, plain woman,
lovely woman, ugly old man.
It triggers something
in us, an instant
distaste.

We applaud the beautiful
pair. We say:
no wonder.

Beauty is cruel
in her symmetry.

But love
is more forgiving.

Let perfect balance
be for art
and not for
living.

Give me the messy,
chaotic riot
of happiness and
grief any day
than the equal parts
of aesthetic
beauty.

(Nov. 21, 2009)

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/appughar/3248593100/ by user appoose81