Infinitely Beautiful

Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
Sonnet 73

Soon they will be gone.

The fabulous fall colors, for which New England is so justly famous.

From Cambridge’s Mount Auburn Cemetery.

To the Boston Common.

And Public Garden.

To the Arnold Arboretum.

At my sister’s house in Maine, they are going fast.

it is a truth that the poets and philosophers have always told us:
Beauty fades.

Like this magnificent face.

Which we cherish because we know it cannot last.

This does not make us love it less.
But love it all the more.

As the Bard knew so well:

This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

The leaves will always return.
But we will not.

And that is what makes us so infinitely beautiful.