more meanings than those in text books

Here's a Norman MacCaig poem, as taken from the pictured 2010 collection, on the value of finding and appreciating beauty - even amongst the myriad adversity around us:


Balances

Because I see the world poisoned
by cant and brutal self-seeking,
must I be silent about
the useless waterlily, the dunnock's nest
in the hedgeback?

Because I am fifty-six years old
must I love, if I love at all,
only ideas - not people, but only
the idea of people?

Because there is work to do, to steady
a world jarred off balance,
must a man meet only a fellow-worker
and never a man?

There are more meanings than those
in text books of economics
and a part of the worst slum
is the moon rising over it
and eyes weeping and
mouths laughing.

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Norman MacCaig (1910 - 1996)

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