Still will I harvest beauty where it grows:
In coloured fungus and the spotted fog
Surprised on foods forgotten; in ditch and bog
Filmed brilliant with irregular rainbows
Of rust and oil, where half a city throws
Its empty tins; and in some spongy log
Whence headlong leaps the oozy emerald frog…
And a black pupil in the green scum shows.
Her the inhabiter of divers places
Surmising at all doors, I push them all.
Oh, you that fearful of a creaking hinge
Turn back forevermore with craven faces,
I tell you Beauty bears an ultra fringe
Unguessed of you upon her gossamer shawl!
By Edna St. Vincent Millay
More wetland poetry:
Crabs Don’t Always Eat Their Young
Winter Solstice in the Wetlands
Swan Lake, A Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauties
Video:
Portland Memorial Mausoleum Mural
http://www.urbangreenspaces.org/multimedia/mural-Oaks-Bottom-fast.html
Student Wetland Poetry (IL): http://www.museum.state.il.us/sci_lit/student_work.html#poetry
