Let Them Say
by Theodora Goss

Let them say of me that I loved beauty,
whether in the smallest things —
spider webs on which the raindrops hung
like crystal from a chandelier, the polychrome
velvet of butterfly wings, or the largest —
sunsets, mainly, during which the heaped-up clouds
bloomed like roses, but also stars at night,
all the usual lovely clichés
in all the different ways
one can love, with both fondness and rapture.
Let them say that I loved the smell
of old books in libraries, and alternatively
the smell of lavender on cotton sheets, the sight
of violets nodding on their thin stems
between heart-shaped leaves
in an excess of spring. Let them say
that I cried at every happily ever after
at the end of a fairy tale,
and the intricate play
of light through lace curtains.

Let them say that I found
each day too short for all the sounds
of birdsong, or wind in the linden trees,
or even the symphony of car horns.
Too short to read every poem.
Too short for bicycling along all the beaches
or eating all the cherries in all the orchards,
hanging the double ones from my ears
like enormous rubies,
and that I loved chocolate inordinately.
Let them say that I loved beauty —
and honestly,
that, I think, would be enough.

(The image is Woman Arranging Flowers by Theo van Rysselberghe.)