A magisterial poem by American poet, Linda Gregg (1942-2019) celebrating what the Japanese called “Wabi Sabi”, the art of appreciating the beautiful in the imperfect in nature and in art.

Elegance

All that is uncared for.
Left alone in the stillness
in that pure silence married
to the silence of nature.
A door off its hinges,
shade and shadows in an empty room.
Leaks for light. Raw where
the tin roof rusted through.
The rustle of weeds in their
different kinds of air in the mornings,
year after year.
A pecan tree, and the house
made out of mud bricks. Accurate
and unexpected beauty, rattling
and singing. If not to the sun,
then to nothing and to no one.