All Things Are Naked Which Is Beauty

[Sitaram]

All things are naked
Which is beauty.
The trees are naked,
As their leaves,
Translucent green
In questioning sunlight,
Raked when they fall
By neat, dressed men,
Burned in the name of duty.


The grass is naked blades.
And the birds,
As they pass through them,
Naked too,
Picking fragile clippings
Which are nests.


Naked are we born
And naked do we walk;
All things being naked
Which can be undressed,
That which we make not mattering,
Which is odd:


All things which are born and die
Are naked,
Even sunlight,
Which is God.

- Sitaram

(written 6:30 p.m, Sunday, June 5, 1966)