Trying to find beauty

I enjoy finding the beauty in everything I do.  I don't remember if this is something that I have always done.  I know that since my AT solo hike it has been a big part of my life.  I have no idea why I try search out beauty.  But no matter where I am, I am constantly on the prowl for the killer view.  I try to stop and enjoy them even if it's just for a minute or even a few seconds.  If I can just let off the gas for a few seconds I can soak in the scene.

 I cannot reproduce these scenes in any meaningful way.  I cannot really find a way to share them with anyone other than myself.  I have tried painting, that didn't work out well trust me.  I take pictures, but that doesn't do the scene justice.  I tried poetry.  That got good reviews at my poetry reading, but it still pales in comparison to the grandness of the world.

Wandering through the city has given me a whole new setting to try to soak beauty from.  It doesn't matter to me whether I am in the city, the middle of nowhere or in a hospital.  I see the wonderful combination of light and shape as a living work of art.

The Burial Vault

As the sun begins to beat

Through the canopy of the forest

The warm, moist earth begins

To release the fragrance of decay.

The leaves and trees and insects and animals

All feed upon on another.

All rot into the ground, all are joined as one.

Are we not part of that "one?"

Why have we decided

To place ourselves in a concrete box?

Because we have removed ourselves from nature.

We no longer see ourselves as products of this world

But producers of things from this world

We have allowed ourselves to be separated

From the cycle of life and decay. Why?

It reminds us that we will rot,

we will become food.

Don't place me in that concrete box!

Let my body nourish all those

Forests that have nourished me

Let my rot bring new life

Let the smell of my decay have a purpose

Let me join myself to nature

One last and lasting time!