For beauty
	The world pays a price:
	It is squalor,
	Loneliness, commonality,
	Every low
	And wicked thing.
	The flowers
	Blooming beside the road
	Grow amidst
	Careless cast-offs
	Of the unconcerned.
	When my pen
	Praises the noblest and
	The best, do I
	Likewise celebrate
	Its ugly, tawdry twin?
	Perhaps, for my own soul
	Has a shabbiness
	Interwoven 'mongst
	Its angelic threads.
	We live
	In an imperfect world,
	A puzzle whose million pieces
	May form a million million pictures,
	Lasting only moments.
	Can there be
	A perfect world?
	What the heart hopes,
	The eyes
	Will never see.

	5/27/81