Evidence:
I saw a flower behind the gate.
Miniscule, it is,
Painted an unsurpassable purple in colour,
But the word ‘purple’ not illuminating
Its exceptional purpleness,
Glowing from the inside out,
As though lit from within,
A colour we can identify,
But cannot recreate;
Its petals delicate, fine,
Soft, vulnerable,
But flawlessly fashioned,
Virtually, but not quite, translucent,
Each matchless in its symphony of existence,
In resolute pursuit of life.
Such splendour hidden away,
Taken for granted,
Common place, we say
Because we do not look
Into its transcendent intricacy,
Do not consider
It a matchless miracle,
A poem, a melody made real,
Truly quite breath-taking
In its (extra) ordinariness,
And exquisite beauty.
And I thought,
If that tiny bloom
Were the solitary entity
On this entire planet,
In this whole solar system,
Within this galaxy,
And I were an alien,
And saw it there,
I would know
That God existed,
And that s/he had visited this place,
And crafted such beauty
With love at its heart.
For all the technology
And genius of my marvelous alien machine,
And for all the stunning art,
Using every and varied techniques,
I and my fellow aliens had fashioned,
I would recognize that
We could not have created this.
Not only is it a technical,
And botanical, marvel,
Which it needs to be,
And is of a divine colour
Which it perhaps needs to be
To attract pollinators,
It does not need to be
Beautiful,
But it is,
As they all are.
I refuse to believe
That this beauty is a fluke;
Nor will I believe
That we are hard-wired
To see it as beautiful
Because flowers represent food
To our subconscious minds,
Or some such rationalisation.
Likewise I will not accept
That it is a result of cultural conditioning.
We can find beauty
In art, music, poetry et alii/aliae/alia,
Relating, perhaps, with a cultural bias,
But natural beauty
Transcends these cultural barriers.
The vast majority of people,
Notwithstanding their culture,
See beauty in rainbows and sunsets,
Moonlit nights and snow-capped mountains,
Aurora Borealis and a myriad other things.
I believe that what this confirms is
That whatever God is,
S/he is an awesome artist,
Crafting works with love,
And that the reason
We can see the beauty,
If we but take the time to look,
Is because there is a seed
Of that unknowable being
Within us all,
And we distinguish
The work of the ultimate artist
Because we,
Most humbly,
Are a diminutive part.
