SCARS OF SUMMER – The Perfect Beauty of Decay

We’re so accustomed, aren’t we, to equating beauty with symmetry, with youth…with perfection. I’m as guilty as anyone, I guess. But isn’t autumn the most persuasive invitation to revisit that bias?

Couldn’t we learn to see the fallen petals, the droops, curls, crimps and ragged seed heads not as flaws, but words in a poem about the patina of character?  

I want to see those blemishes as emblems of the joy each bloom has lent the eye, the food and nectar they’ve served up, the progeny borne, the artists inspired.

And, after all, as a lesson offered us older, equally-imperfect human beings on the meaning, the true value, of a life well lived?

"Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light." ~ THEODORE ROETHKE