Meaningless

After yet many more hours of work

The artist looked up around him again,

But in a moment he took in more beauty

Than he or any had ever yet created.

Yet the rival that had bested him,

Did not even know of its own doings,

And merely happened to do by chance

What he for the life of him could not.

Again he wondered what he was trying,

When the world is already so beautiful,

So much so that everything all around him,

His work was by far the least beautiful.

He crumpled the paper together into a lump,

And as he looked at the patterns he saw in it,

He knew that it was an improvement:

Only now he had created something beautiful.

Nature puts the best of us to shame,

And turns all our work into an absurdity,

But by all means let us laugh with her,

At how small each of us mere humans is.

For the best of every art is no one’s at all,

Yet so full we each are of ourselves,

That we would rather not see it too much,

Just so we could think better of ourselves.