Beauty

Beauty can be found in moldering stone
a faded hibiscus bloom, a sunset
a dead bird, a child’s laughter
Beauty is a defeated chrysanthemum
more poignant in humility than pride
Beauty is the sweetest rose
bedewed with tears of a lover
Beauty exists in sunlight gleaming from a stone
embedded in mud
Beauty is the sound of wind
the strength of a thunderstorm
the claw of lightning, the dance of willow leaves
Beauty breathes in the old written page
as fragile as the resolve of men to love life
and be indentured to it, when he only wants love
that elusive thing of beauty, personified
But life is at times not living for love, or beauty
Life, now and then, is mere surviving
forsaking surcease from fear only
to watch life become the personification of pain

~~~

© W.R.R. 5/30/2002