I follow Plato only with my mind.
Pure beauty strikes me as a little thin,
A little cold, however beautiful.
I am in love with what is mixed, impure,
doubtful and dark and hard to disencumber.
I want a beauty I must dig for, search for.
Pure beauty is beginning and not end.
Begin with sun and drop from sun to cloud,
From cloud to tree, from tree to earth itself,
And deeper yet down to the earth-dark root.
I am in love with what resists my loving,
With what I have to labor to make live.
