I will chase beauty until I find her
though she has fallen from the sky.
I will find her in the cracks between the pavements,
the bright bloom escaping the hedge,
the white tipped waves on the horizon.
She is almost the more beautiful
for surviving against the odds,
and she does not cost the earth.
She is our antidote to everything that takes from us,
by the fact that she is free, akin to grace.
And if no condition is placed on what defines her,
she can be found
in every corner of a room, yard,
on the sill, in a jam jar,
in a break between clouds.
We can even wear her,
she has a way of transposing herself upon the skin,
that we will feel undressed without her,
and will search again and again
until we can gather her round.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
October 2020
‘We need beauty because it makes us ache to be worthy of it.’
Mary Oliver
Living Tree Poetry 