On Beauty

On Beauty

It is no ordinary stop that captivates,
no lush green paradise
as if to flush the ugliness of war.
There is instead, that rush of purity
that sweeps across the panorama of the mind
to speak of the uncommon,
of something changing everything
just by standing still.

It is said that pain is that which will evoke
the journey to the mountain peak, yet
quest is the fulfillment of desire
and not the burning fire of dreams
that dance before the one to seek
the pinnacle of art.

And when the best defining
may not approach the mark of truth
that in that sacerdotal lay
God dwells in you...
that on the shining rim of day
God dwells in you!—

it is to know
the fairest beauty of them all.
In supreme accolade
before the fair impossible
white angel of a far ineffable
white paradise, there comes
a son of man, a daughter of the earth
for whom all worlds, all time
attends.
~