Page 54 - Writes of Passage

STILL WILL I HARVEST BEAUTY WHERE IT GROWS
Still will I harvest beauty where it grows:
In coloured fungus and the spotted fog
Surprised on foods forgotten; in ditch and bog Filmed brilliant with irregular rainbows
Of rust and oil, where half a city throws
Its empty tins; and in some spongy log
Whence headlong leaps the oozy emerald frog. . . . And a black pupil in the green scum shows.
Her the inhabiter of divers places
Surmising at all doors, I push them all.
Oh, you that fearful of a creaking hinge
Turn back forevermore with craven faces,
I tell you Beauty bears an ultra fringe
Unguessed of you upon her gossamer shawl!
Edna St Vincent Millay
Not many people would find “the coloured fungus and the spotted fog surprised on foods forgotten” beautiful. You will know what that’s like if you have ever found a discarded packed lunch some weeks later. But I have a friend who takes fabulous photos of rust and decay, and, yes, fungus (mostly in woods – on “spongy logs”) and has made me realise that natural beauty doesn’t only exist in sunsets and flowers and light on water. This poem is an encouragement to look closely at things, and without prejudice. You might surprise yourself by the patterns and colours and shapes you can find, if you refuse to be squeamish, in rubbish tips and unlikely and abandoned places. It makes the world richer.
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