Beauty

Looking at the Moon after Rain

The heavy clouds are broken and blowing,

And once more I can see the wide common stretching beyond the four sides of the city.

Open the door. Half of the moon-toad is already up,

The glimmer of it is like smooth hoar-frost spreading over ten thousand li.

The river is a flat, shining chain.

The moon, rising, is a white eye to the hills;

After it has risen, it is the bright heart of the sea.

Because I love it—so—round as a fan,

I hum songs until the dawn.
 

by Li Po, translated by Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell

Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz

I'm sending you a poem to remind you of Beauty. In nature, in others, in ourselves.