Ambushed by beauty
Whether by accident or grand design
Deity with genius plan, six days
Then onward through millennia
Or happiest of chances, cataclysmic up-thrust
Cleft and crack, peak and rocky outcrop, crag
Whatever the origin and subsequent
The evolution
We might debate, more or less
Heatedly
Still, stood gazing south-westward
Across the valley and the foothills
To the Pyrenees, just now shades of purple
Veering blue
With white snow summits dripped
Irregular as icing
The lilt and roll, geology’s soft folds
Mostly bare, not brown
But umber, terracotta, aubergine
Readying for spring
In such a landscape, first fields
Brash with acid yellow
Cypresses stood sentinel
Vines in lines meticulous
See how the air does hum, redolent
Brimming with poetry
Scattered in seeds, broadcast
Rooting in richest soil
And other art transcendent
At every turn ambushed by beauty
A poem or a painting springs
Unbidden as a fountain
Lovely from this land
Whether by accident or grand design
Deity with genius plan, six days
Then onward through millennia
Or happiest of chances, cataclysmic up-thrust
Cleft and crack, peak and rocky outcrop, crag
Whatever the origin and subsequent
The evolution
We might debate, more or less
Heatedly
Still, stood gazing south-westward
Across the valley and the foothills
To the Pyrenees, just now shades of purple
Veering blue
With white snow summits dripped
Irregular as icing
The lilt and roll, geology’s soft folds
Mostly bare, not brown
But umber, terracotta, aubergine
Readying for spring
In such a landscape, first fields
Brash with acid yellow
Cypresses stood sentinel
Vines in lines meticulous
See how the air does hum, redolent
Brimming with poetry
Scattered in seeds, broadcast
Rooting in richest soil
And other art transcendent
At every turn ambushed by beauty
A poem or a painting springs
Unbidden as a fountain
Lovely from this land
21st April 2012, Hounoux, for Gill my friend
