Beauty | A Poem by Laura Weaver

By Laura Weaver

Writing has been an integral part of my life for as long as I can remember.  I am a chaser of light, a stalker of beauty, a lover of the ephemeral blooms of the eternal, a diver to the underworld, a moth to the flame of truth, a child at play in the deep woods.  My writing is not only a conversation with my own soul, but with the Global Soul as well. Through my dance with words, I discover my deepest longings, god-wrestle with suffering, dream new dreams, and unfold the origami of my heart. Poems are makeshift life-rafts for passage~our stories wild seeds that break open in the fire, releasing butterflies. It is a beautiful and impossible task to fully speak to our human experience~to the grit and grace of our unique journeys.   May we have the courage to meet our impossible tasks and discover our exquisite destinies~to unwrap the gifts of this embodied Life, plunge our hands in the good, rich soils, and bring our whole selves to this wild encounter with all that is. – Laura Weaver, from her website

Beauty

There is nowhere to hide

in the desert, under the full moon,

in the blue light that pours

through the body like water.

It as if we are born again

in the open air, to feel our bare

skin against the world for the first time.

And from here, eyes untethered,

we see a different kind of beauty

that lives underneath the surface—

that quivers in the thorns

and breaks out of the volcanic rock

like a song you hear in a dream,

when your mind has gone quiet.

To meet this kind of beauty,

make a slow approach,

a spiral walk to the center.

Leave offerings. Show up

in the odd hours of the night—

then she may let you see her fur,

her sharp teeth, the flash

of her pale underbelly.

For this beauty moves in the spaces—

in the interior of things, in the rivulets

of a dry land that rarely sees rain,

in the seed that blooms once in a hundred years,

in the sap of a Joshua tree lifting

its arms, heavy with blooms, to the piercing stars.

This beauty leaves you weeping

in the blue of the moonlight

with nowhere to hide.

About this Kosmos Reader:

Laura Weaver, MA is an author, poet, consultant, facilitator, guide, and parent, with over two decades of experience in education, writing, and non-profit and social change work. She currently serves as the Director of Transformative Learning at the PassageWorks Institute~a non-profit dedicated to cultivating meaningful and nourishing school culture and practice.  Laura’s writing history includes co-authoring the recently published book for educators The Five Dimensions of Engaged Teaching (Solution Tree, 2013), co-authoring numerous curricula for the transitions years, and publishing dozens of poems, book chapters and essays on topics ranging from school-based rites of passage to death and dying