Beautify all things & e.e. cummings

A poem for spring and scoring pattern for sourdough

“The only thing that separates us from the animals,” Clairee Belcher (played by Olympia Dukakis) in the 1989 film Steel Magnolias, “is our ability to accessorize.”

And while it’s a cute quote, it underscores a certain truth.

One of the things that dignifies us is the way we bring beauty to our lives. It could be a flower arrangement, a lovely way of setting the table, or how we serve our food. (My father-in-law, a former caterer and talented cook, likes to say, “we eat with our eyes” to explain why he painstakingly arranged evergreen bean on the platter facing the same direction.)

All these small acts elevate what could just be a physical existence into something more sublime.

As inspiration for the spring flowers that are coming out now in the northern hemisphere, I’d like to share a line from an e.e. Cuming's poem, where he describes his love by admiring the way she makes everything beautiful:

Thy fingers make early flowers of

all things.

e.e. Cummings, Songs (III)

I find that line brushes against this ineffable truth in ways ten thousand words never will.

And with that little inspiration, I’ll leave you with a pattern you can do on your sourdough, so your fingers can make early flowers too.