Sarita Armstrong

Summer Nights

I remember nights like this -

On a still, still summer evening,

Ten o’clock but blue the sky

With one bright star, or a new moon

Shining.  The air so still.

And I never thought then, when a

Chance task took me out of doors

To the unexpected beauty of it all –

Not just that, but the ethereal peace

That only still evenings like this bring –

No, I never thought then

That I would ever find again

That same enchanted evening stillness,

That same super-human beauty

In this, a foreign land.

I thought that I had left it all:

Enchantment as though loved by gods!

But though I had left

It had not left me.

Beauty is everywhere, if only we see.

Our eyes are but windows

Our heart is the mirror:

It’s not what you see but

The way that you see it

That leads to the beauty

In each human being.

© Sarita Armstrong 1982