What We're Taught About Beauty

by Sandra Kohler


Snow, moon, flowers: these are the three
most beautiful things in the world, Tang
dynasty poetry tells me, answering its own

question, I read in the Hokkusai exhibit
at the museum last week. This morning,
at the elementary school bus stop, trying

to distract my grandchildren from thinking
about how Nina, their little schnauzer, is
going to be put to death this morning,

I tell them about the question, its answers,
ask what they'd say if the poets asked. "Stars,"
Sam pipes up, before I've even said "what else?"

then Katie, "trees," asks if I agree with the list,
I say yes, but not when snow's seven feet high,
the way it was this past winter; then say I'd

add the rising and setting sun. What I want
to add is comfort; I don't know where to find
it. When I picked up the children for the walk

to the bus stop, I gather that what's most
painful for my son was to watch his daughter
say her goodbyes to Nina, his first pet too.

We each grieve our own loss, the losses of
those we love. I grieve for all of us, want to
comfort us all. I don't have the words, just
fleeting images: snow, trees, stars, flowers.


* * * * *

Sandra Kohler’s third collection of poems, Improbable Music, (Word Press) appeared in May, 2011. Earlier collections are The Country of Women (Calyx, 1995) and The Ceremonies of Longing, (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003). Her poems have appeared in journals, including The New Republic, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Prairie Schooner, and many others over the past 45 years. In 2018, a poem of hers was chosen to be part of Jenny Holzer’s permanent installation at the new Comcast Technology Center in Philadelphia.