Illusion’s Beauty
Hugging the tree stump
like Hera’s children,
they wear the green silk,
pink and lavender velvet
of Maypole ribbons.
Adorning earth’s shoulders,
they bear early summer gifts.
I cannot walk by without
catching my breath.
When all else fails, when
world’s shadow seems too
close, too real, there is always
beauty, always. I can find it
in the dark by touch, just
the other side of fear.
The fragrance of tuber rose
on a bar of soap. The color
and texture of rust on cast iron.
Beauty knows no borders:
the bruised apple fallen
on the ground, lovely sight
to a deer, the transparent skin
shed by a garden snake,
the blue waterway
of an old woman’s hands.
A discarded gun. Even
a bomb to the bomb-maker.
My preference for flowers–
talisman for universal peace–
for earthworms and chameleons,
for kindness and the softness
of sea spray, is part of my dream,
insubstantial as a night rainbow
yet vivid. A beautiful illusion.
Carol Alena Aronoff, Ph.D. is a psychologist, teacher and poet. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and has won several prizes. She was twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has published a chapbook (Cornsilk) and 4 books of her poems and photographs: The Nature of Music, Cornsilk, Her Soup Made the Moon Weep, Blessings From an Unseen World as well as Dreaming Earth’s Body (with artist Betsie Miller-Kusz). Currently, she resides in rural Hawaii.
