Beauty

I see paper gardens
Well-trimmed lace gardens
Flowers in neat rows and
A view of the lake
Beautiful gardens
Someone must work very hard
To care for them
Gardens and glass greenhouses
Mixing in a modern twist
(White flowers, they say, are romantic)
Gardens built by people
With the time and money to spare
Nothing gets done
These days
Without time and money
They bought and built beauty
Lawns and beds of flowers
Perfectly shaped trees that
Hang overhead just enough
So you feel sheltered, but not stifled
Everything within boundaries
Everything elegant and contained.
I prefer wild beauty
The tiger's stripes and
Patterns in smoke and flame
I prefer the cry on an eagle
To the hum of oblivious humanity
I prefer the quarry
High stone slabs reaching higher
Sharp, jagged spires of rock
Walls so natural
That you feel sheltered, but not stifled
Adventure lives there
With the trees at the top of the cliffs
Sunlight threatening to
Push them down onto our tiny figures
I prefer danger
Wild, strong danger
I will pass through
The thrill no modern adventure-park ride
Can truly replicate with seatbelts
There is beauty in the snarling bear
Beauty in the wind
Danger in the great falling icicles
Crystal blades
You must walk beneath.
You need no time or money to spare
To walk into the sunlight
Slanting through many tall thin birches
Time, perhaps, but not money
To feel the roaring power of the sea
Unquenchable
Vast and mighty and immortal
Emerald waves without dyes
Without swimming-pool ladders
Without human control
I prefer the wild, flying grace
Found in truth
Not makeup and fussing
I prefer fire and raw beauty
To diets and paint to mask yourself.
Some will walk
Yes, I will walk
Through magnificently plotted
Beds of romantic white flowers
I will watch the lake
Over walls that keep ornate "weeds" away
And think of the sea
I will sigh in amazement
At long lawns bordered with violas and lilac trees
Along with everyone else
There is beauty in red rosebushes pruned into spheres
Beauty in soft layered rows of color and scent,
After all
We all have different ideals
But we all react to splendor
With one voice.