Potatoes

From the ground, each round potato,
russet, brown, or gold--crumbs of dirt
still clinging to its skin--just fits
into the palm of the hand that
pulled it from the earth. Brushed clean and
roasted, held again in two hands,
it offers warmth, then nourishes
the body, the hands that held it.

~ Helen Frost, The Braid

Song

The songs that enter children's ears
carried across centuries of
love, stay with them, bringing comfort,
setting their feet dancing, coming
back to them when their own children
first look up and see them smiling
or hear them weeping as they rock,
strong boats upon a stormy sea.

~ Helen Frost, The Braid

Modern Art

The great artists of the past were aware that human life is full of chaos and suffering. They had a remedy for this, and the name of that remedy was beauty.  The beautiful work of art brings consolation in sorrow and affirmation in joy. It shows human life to be worthwhile.

But art turned its back on beauty. It became a slave to the consumer culture, feeding our pleasures and addictions, and wallowing in self-disgust. . . They do not show reality , but take revenge on it, spoiling what might have been a home and leaving us to wander unconsoled and alienated in a spiritual desert.

~ Roger Scruton
Why Beauty Matters