If I had begun this a few years ago, it would have been much simpler. For I would quickly launch into a discussion of Edgar Allen Poe’s essay on prose and poetry; mention the triangle (adding love) that drives much of the sub-plot of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge; and discuss, perhaps including a photo, the commemorative ornaments sold by the Library of Congress featuring John Keats’ quote that titles this post.
At another time I would have talked about the significance of simple things in William Carlos William’s focused descriptions or William Blake’s suggestion that eternity could be glimpsed through intense observation.
I might have even (and I’ll give you a bit more here) relayed Eric G. Wilson’s melancholy view in his book, Against Happiness, that his connectedness with “rhythms that drive” the earth and all life, “their sweet contracting and expanding,” “this unique and unrepeatable possibility” is beautiful not only because it is fleeting, but because of its authenticity.
And that comes closest so far to what I intend to develop.
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2 comments:
Intresting..this makes me think of plants and dance. surprise right? i know... but when you think your sitting still and you realize you've been moving the whole time. a gently rock or cyclic pulse with your breath. And then how that is the same with plants. They move in the same way as the sunlight changes. if only flowers could pick up their skirts, uproot, and boogie!
Well, you know me...I'd launch into an invective detailing how the human perception of beauty is crucially at fault and that beauty through the eyes of one unbound by primitive directives is much more compelling, complex, and 'elegant'... ;-)
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