I, too, find this world mean and ugly.
When I am sad, it is sadly beautiful,
But this is a passing mood, and not the truth.
Accidental verdure trailing across the top of an industrial fence outside the train
Can bring a momentary feeling of reprieve: heroic verdure! Then the entire stained world seems okay.
This feeling lasts as long as I am sad. Beautiful moods attach themselves to sad ones.
But I find no beauty at all when
I dwell on wronged and fallen humanity, and how asphalt and trash
Are the essence of every city, and cleaning and flushing is an operation
That never ceases, and human loneliness and its bewildering pain
Afflicts even the sweetly innocent who try
To be good and tender before the very door of truth.
Inside that door, which is iron and spotted and gray,
I sense eternity, whose darkness is our darkness,
A rich, beautiful darkness, which never quite goes away.
