On Beauty and Being Just, by Jane Zwart

Here the poet explores what she sees as her own plainness compared with the beauty of the natural world. I like this poem's sly way of sliding into traditional metaphor. The moth, for example, is phosphorescent like eyeshadow. That sounds right. I wore shiny, blue moths on my eyelids in the seventh grade.

On Beauty and Being Just

It is possible that I have been unfair

to them, the flamboyants:

to opals, to abalones, to moths

more phosphorescent than any eyeshadow I’ve worn—

because who knows?

Maybe the painted bunting

would willingly trade

his layered, paint-by-number capes

for the robin’s rusty apron. Maybe

the hibiscus is not a satellite dish

tilting on its stem to overhear

the praise of passers-by

but an umbrella mortified

that day has left it open

in a narrow place to dry. Maybe

the Northern Lights’ magic

is static, escaped photons

from the cupped palm of a modest

earth, smoothing her skirt.

. . .

But there, too, I have been unjust,

asking the bird to disavow

his jaunty beauty, rose mallow to flower

rue. Wanting to be fair—

let me trade it for plain

delight. Let me quit shaming

the flame-like things

or, at least, let the wind 

unwinding its argon sarong

not mind the likes of me.

Published in 32 Poems magazine
Spring/Summer 2020




Do mind me.