Marty's Haiku - 13. March Haiku

Beautiful 

36 minutes ago, chris191070 said:

Beautiful 

Thanks, @chris191070!

(I'm left wondering if you're talking about the Haiku or the photograph - or maybe even both? )

Lovely... both....  

2 minutes ago, Headstall said:

Lovely... both....  

  Gary  

Thank you for taking me on your walk today. 

Sometimes I forget because of all the ugliness, just how beautiful the world really is.

Thanks for the reminder...and the haiku! It's one of my most fav of forms🤓

11 hours ago, Parker Owens said:

Thank you for taking me on your walk today. 

You're more than welcome, Parker!

And thank you for taking the time to comment.

9 hours ago, RafaelDe said:

Sometimes I forget because of all the ugliness, just how beautiful the world really is.

Thanks for the reminder...and the haiku! It's one of my most fav of forms🤓

I know exactly what you mean about the oft hidden beauty there is in the world, @RafaelDe, and one of the things I particularly like about haiku is the way it's brevity enables the writer to to strip away all the ugliness and reveal the essential beauty.

Thank you for commenting.  

The world is a beautiful place. I'm afraid most of the ugliness in it is our own doing!

Nice to be reminded that nature does it better. Thanks!

2 hours ago, Geron Kees said:

The world is a beautiful place. I'm afraid most of the ugliness in it is our own doing!

Nice to be reminded that nature does it better. Thanks!

Thanks for the comment, and the like, Geron!

Philosophically speaking, though, would it not be true to say that ugliness only really exists inside our minds?

And, as for nature doing it better, could it be argued that all things, including both mankind and the dreaded coronavirus, are part of nature? 

Sorry, just idle musings on my part. Although they make me think of this piece I wrote a number of years ago...

Well, if ugliness only exists in our minds, are we then not the root of it?

I guess ugliness is a matter of interpretation, just as is any other thing. Do all living things see the world in terms of beauty or ugliness? Or are such fine perceptions confined to the top of the food chain?

Can a butterfly see beauty in a rainbow? Is my dog thrilled to see the spring blooms outside? Do the crickets sing at night because the stars above enthrall them so?

When you start getting to thoughts on that level, it can be said that nothing even exists without eyes to see it, ears to hear it, and a mind to interpret that input one way or the other. And let's not forget imagination: the final ingredient needed to see beyond what our eyes and ears can tell us. Beauty and ugliness are both part of imagination. Only imagination can take the dark mountains at night and turn them into the abodes of brooding gods ready to smite us. Only imagination can take the dew on the morning grass and transform those drops to the tears of angels, their hearts gladdened by the dawn.

To assemble the world into visions that please us, motivate us, inspire us to better things, we need imagination. The same goes for the things that terrify us. Beauty enchants us; ugliness horrifies. Both exist because of delicate chains of thought and perception that stray from the concrete flows that our eyes and ears send to our minds. Beauty and ugliness, both, may simply be expressions of our imagination, so subtle that even we don't see it at work.

I agree, all things are part of nature. Yet we exist at a level that allows us to alter nature in ways that she has yet to arrive at on her own. Some of those results are not as beautiful as they may have been had we waited for nature to get there herself. And some places, nature knows not even to go. If only we were as smart!

I guess, in the end, it's up to us, isn't it? We can choose to view an ugly universe, or a beautiful one. Free will, how about that?

But...I do prefer the beautiful one, myself.