I Watch a Leaf
June 23 2013


I watch a leaf
levitate
light as air.
Drift fitfully back to earth
like a luffing sail.

I admire
its symmetry, and detail,
intricately branching veins
fine serrated edge.
The luminous green
that will deepen, and dull.
Until all the colour
bleeds out
to its tough internal structure
of industrial brown.

Because the real beauty
of a leaf
is in its work,
the alchemy
of an infinitesimal machine
that transubstantiates sun
into fuel.
How elegant a tool,
to perform this sleight-of-hand
at room temperature
with such frugality;
no pistons crashing, no mountains of slag,
no cauldrons of molten steel.

The simple beauty
of chlorophyll,
shuffling electrons
as a magician manipulates cards.
An artist
of close-up magic.

This aesthetic
of usefulness
is its own peculiar beauty.
Unlike the beautiful surface,
which the bravest art
eschews.
Art
that does not depend
on shock, disruption, newness.
Art
too pure
to be made for the passing viewer.
Art
that refers
only to itself.

The beauty
of a leaf
unfurling from its bud.
And the pathos
when it's plucked,
such an exquisite piece
so casually undone.
Which is what all art
seeks to explain
is it not?

The wonder of life,
leafing out
as if gravity didn't exist.
The inescapable fall
we futilely resist.


Engineers have discovered something called "bio-mimicry". While the traditional way of making things has been characterized as "heat, beat, and treat" -- manufacturing on a large scale, squandering resources and energy, and generating a lot of waste -- nature does the same thing, but with remarkable economy and elegance. As it says in the poem, transforming substances "at room temperature / and with such frugality." In bio-mimicry, we try to learn from billions of years of evolution, from the experimental laboratory of nature.

Leaves are, of course, beautiful in the traditional aesthetic sense. But when you consider the hidden molecular world these tiny things contain, an even greater level of beauty emerges. If you discipline yourself to go about the world with a sense of wonder, the simple action of holding a leaf, or admiring one, can be filled with awe. I would have used the word "awesome" in the poem; but unfortunately, flagrant over-usage has debased that word, robbed it of its original metaphysical and supernatural meaning.

So beauty is not simply an aesthetic construct. There can be awe-inspiring beauty in utility. A mathematical proof can be beautiful in its economy and elegance. And a leaf, as well: so infinitesimally small and delicate, yet such an elegantly efficient machine. Actually, this is my favourite part of the poem. I hope the tension in this incongruity strikes the reader as well: that is, the juxtaposition of a delicate leaf with the brutal imagery of tools, industry, and machines; of slag heaps and molten steel and deafening sound.

I like this idea of unselfconscious art. Can there be beauty, without intention? Does beauty exist, if no human is there to see it?

And another question alluded to here: Is beauty essential to art? Because I've heard art defined not as something beautiful, but as something that is transformational: concerned as much with meaning as being pleasing to the eye, or ear, or touch. (I've also heard it defined as anything an artist makes!) And even if we agree that beauty is essential, can there be an objective, enduring, universal measure? Or is beauty necessarily subjective?

Maybe, as the engineers are discovering about process, the aesthetically-minded are discovering about beauty: it is ultimately to be found in nature, and our efforts are merely poor imitations of the real thing.

Of course, the poem doesn't explore all this. And it shouldn't: that's way too much work for one poem to do, and is better suited to the more laborious elaboration of prose. The main thing I set out to do was what most of my poetry sets out to do: close observation, and microcosm. I wanted to elucidate this remarkable hidden world; to exalt the everyday; and to express my appreciation for this unseen and unappreciated kind of beauty: that is, the elegant beauty of simplicity, function, and frugality.

If nothing else, the poem is an encomium to chlorophyll: a humble and unappreciated molecule, but by far the most important and revolutionary one in the history of life on earth.