The Wabi-Sabi of Tintern Abbey

Things bloom more beautiful when breaking down. The nave now ploughs through foams of flowering trees, a frozen caravel. Kissed by the breeze, the river surface suddenly seems to frown exquisitely. The apse’s jaunty crown of weeds above one (sightless) eye would please romantic poets. What was once a friese lies strewn about, a shaley shanty-town. We love whatever withers, atrophies. To see a calked construction founder, drown beneath its own detritus, by degrees slough off its shape and, sinking to its knees, expire, is satisfying. Velvet gown? We’d much prefer to see a soiled chemise. A lake? A cloud? A mountain? Megan Fox? If we acknowledge Beauty in these things, what are we saying? As when Smokey sings, or girls emerge in slinky summer frocks, something’s taking place outside the box of regularity, and sprouting wings. How might we classify these happenings? A rupture in the norm? The whole Baroque’s built on this very point. If Beauty rocks, what is the special quality it brings, and why is it so pleasing? Beauty flings a spanner in the works of Orthodox, and laughs at Workaday. It mocks our essence, lurks in quirks, and smirks at clocks. “The Wordsworth ouevre is cretinous. Discuss.” The Long, Laborious Quest, The Sparrow’s Nest, The Noble Oak of Guernica, Addressed – We can’t escape the feeling he’s a wuss. His subjects are unconscionable, plus the rhymes he uses are a facilefest. If only he were even half in jest! His humour’s unintentional, and thus more entertaining than he could have guessed. Yet something in his scribblings seems to wrest significance from dross, analogous to Newton’s differential calculus, invented by the by, at whim’s behest. When Wordsworth falls apart, he’s at his best.