Compare?

The beauty of a world beyond comparison

I must live on the most beautiful
planet in the universe.

She asked me to compare one spectacle of nature to another—
the glaciers of Patagonia to Iguazu.

Would I dare compare the beauty
of her right eye to her left?
the curve of her back to her left thigh?
the lobe of her ear to her little toe?

Who am I to make judgments so grand?

Just as each digit, each limb, each morsel of flesh
is attached to my tender love—
each waterfall, each mountain stream,
each glacier, each bobbing iceberg
makes the body of our world.

To her, my only reply can be…
that I must live on the most beautiful
planet in the universe.

A poem by Pemba Umoja