BEAUTY

There is nowhere to hide in the desert
under the full moon, in the blue light

that pours through the body like water.
It as if we are born again in the open air,

to feel our bare skin against the world
for the first time. And from here, eyes untethered,

we see a different kind of beauty that lives
beneath the surface—that quivers in the thorns

and breaks out of the volcanic rock like a song
you hear when your mind has gone quiet.

To meet this kind of beauty, make a slow approach,
a spiral walk to the center. Leave offerings. Show up

in the odd hours of the night—then she may
let you see her fur, her sharp teeth, the flash

of her pale underbelly. For this kind of beauty moves
in the spaces—in the interior of things, in the rivulets

of a dry land that rarely sees rain, in the seeds
that bloom once in a hundred years, in the sap

of a Joshua tree lifting its arms—heavy with blooms—
to the piercing stars. This beauty leaves you weeping

in the blue of the moonlight
with nowhere to hide.

©LauraWeaver
“Beauty”–from the collection LUMINOUS:Poems & Inquiry for the Soul’s Journey
LauraWeaver.org
luminouspoetry.com

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