I once had a philosophy professor–Anthony Graybosch–who was fond of paraphrasing Emerson’s quote about the pervasive nature of beauty. “There’s beauty in everything,” he would tell the class, pause for effect, then drop the hammer, “even a corpse.”
It’s a provocative notion I revisit every so often, most recently while tramping through the leaf litter down the North Taylor Creek trail near Westcliffe.
Poking through a carpet of fading yellow Aspen leaves was the brilliant red scrub oak leaf. And there it was: the persistence of beauty amongst decay.
“There is no object so foul that intense light will not make beautiful. “
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I think Prof. Graybosch would agree it was a quintessentially Emersonian scene. And he might add there’s a dash of Whitman amid those leaves, as well.
