Every Day Beauty

During lockdown, my local writing friends have stayed in touch, zooming weekly and writing away.

Every few days, I’ve been posting poetry challenges to a collection of local poets, just for fun, for something to write about during lockdown.

After reading loads of excellent poems over the last few weeks, I figured maybe it was time for me to put pen to paper, and write a poem in response to one of the challenges.

I chose this on, Every Day Beauty.

This challenge was set, originally, after thinking about a colony of bees who nest near our potting shed, out the back; the entrance to their underground hive is under a dandelion leaf near the shed door.

To us, this is a fascinating delight; to the bees, this is simply their front door.

And in that moment, there is every day beauty.

So here we go.

I hope you like.

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Every Day Beauty

Everything novel turns normal, over time;

nature’s repetitive familiarity

making us ignore Earth’s every day beauty.

Birds fly in thin air – so too gnats and dragonflies;

dragons – as per legend – used to fly above us,

fairy tale creatures linked to the health of our land.

Fairies also fly, bringing wonder to children

yet to lose their magic, yet to have hope destroyed

by our cultural, cynical realism.

And with magic’s loss our known world loses wonder,

no more can simple sights, new worlds, absorb our minds;

age jades us, stops us perceiving Earth’s beauty.

An every day kiss, a butterfly, sunlight –

coolness in dawn’s mist – so normal, so wonderful;

intriguingly fascinating, captivating.

Beneath every fallen leaf lies a sure trove,

a world we can discover, not sweep clean away

or crush underfoot in righteous power.

Earth is filled with multiple, deep layered mysteries,

webs and networks binding and sorting artefacts,

from life forms to love, pleasure to soul immersion.

Gaia gives us our physical reality –

we owe her breath, sight, our bodies and our senses,

and we reincarnate to be with her once more.

We return from beyond the veil time and again

to find Gaia will nurture us just like last time,

held in her bosom, freely giving us our needs.

And even in that eternal repetition,

we come back as children, our hearts and minds open:

another chance to see beauty, every day.