Concentrate On Beauty

Within an ancient palace of Beijing’s Forbidden City
lies a hall that is endowed
to literary glory:
to understand its story,
you must leave the madding crowd
and, cultivated, concentrate on beauty without pity.

Written while visiting an exhibition from the Forbidden City at the Bowers’ Museum in Santa Ana. Within the Forbidden City there are halls dedicated to earthly tranquility, mental cultivation, supreme harmony, benevolent harmony and concentrated beauty.

8/30/00