The Hermit Struggles to Answer

Can only mountains be more
Beautiful than more mountains?
A teal hummingbird—yes, teal,

Appears to me—who knows why—
Hums around me where I sit,
Investigating beauty,

A clue to something to eat.
Red book? Gold apple? Green eyes?
Why is it never enough

That the use of beauty is,
Or was, for our ancestors,
Good guidance for keeping fit?

The beautiful leads us home
To where the colors are known,
To where the palette suits us—

Here we could grow or have grown
Up to and including those
Purely local inducements—

Regional plates and produce,
Artificial nourishments
We’ve grown used to feeding us,

The tastes we’ve learned fill us up,
The shapes inspiring our lusts—
What comforts and succors us.

Sure, there’s a bit of wiggle
Room for the ghosts we carry,
Abstractly gorgeous nature,

Vistas that don’t promise much—
No Samarkand fruit markets,
No glut of milk and honey—

Landscapes purely dangerous,
But beautiful nonetheless,
Deserted and mountainous.

If there’s some worth beyond life
In the world of the living,
The hints are drop-dead barren,

Like the strange longing I get
For this kind of emptiness
That’s all a teal hummingbird

Will find in my hazel eyes,
And all that my eyes can find
In watching a cloud go by.