Beauty
is the ideal,
gifted by Plato himself,
that has captured
us as human beings
and enclosed us
in its deep
and ravishing power,
as deep as the soul’s
need for significance,
and as wide
as the signs
and objects
that surround us
and define our very being.
Sitting in a hair salon
watching the power
of beauty sweep
over hair and seep
out of mirrors,
it’s material presence
seems to come from the
realms of perfection
to strike
the human condition
and remind us of
our rugged imperfection.
Beauty, you are
a presence
that unites us
across cultures,
languages and religions;
you are the master
and the mistress
that enslaves us
and directs us
in the ways we want
to show our
humanness
to each other.
You are
the pervasive end
to which we strive,
but never reach
as a species,
through our art
and culture,
in our installations,
sacred objects
and living spaces,
in all our ways
of dressing for ourselves
and for each other.
Plato,
you saw it right:
beauty is the ideal
of ideals,
the perfection
of perfections,
that even the gods
are beholden to.
12/8/2016