The Beautiful Changes
One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides
The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies
On water; it glides
So from the walker, it turns
Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you
Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.
The beautiful changes as a forest is changed
By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;
As a mantis, arranged
On a green leaf, grows
Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves
Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.
Your hands hold roses always in a way that says
They are not only yours; the beautiful changes
In such kind ways,
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.
-Richard Wilbur, from Collected Poems 1943-2004
Gladsome Lights 
Oh, what a lovely poem by Richard Wilbur. I’m so glad you shared it with us today. I am especially moved by the first three lines of the last stanza … the beautiful changes in such kind ways. Thank you for this lovely gift today.
Brenda xox
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I’m ravished with wonder “seeing this” in my mind.
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I particularly enjoyed these lines:
“the beautiful changes
In such kind ways,
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things’ selves for a second finding…”
Second findings often outshine the first, by far.
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Within the first lines I thought maybe the author was you. As I read on I realized it wasn’t you. Do you write poetry? I looked again at my sister’s memorial video. My brother artfully ended the commemorative with one of her poems. I knew immediately that she had written it.
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I haven’t written a poem for a long time, and I’ve written very few altogether.
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This is so beautiful. I have now read it three times and will read it many more…Thank you!
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Oh my! That picture in stanza #1. Those rich thoughts in #2; image and thought in #3. Really nice! Although I’m still puzzling over,
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things’ selves for a second finding,
Now that I see it separately from the lady (or man) with the roses, I think it may have to do with abstraction, especially since the phrase “The Beautiful Changes” seems to require being read as subject and verb, not as adjective and noun as I had first thought.
On the other hand, perhaps the separating of things from “things’ selves” may refer to looking directly at a beautiful object without being distracted by context or, say, personal history. Anyway…
My favorite lines are:
it glides
So from the walker, it turns
Dry grass to a lake
. . . . .
Thank you for a pleasant break in a cold grey morning here!
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I am not familiar with Richard Wilbur. I would have to say this poem is a great choice, it’s a really lovely poem.
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