The Truth of Beauty
Sometimes a thing sudden
Out of nowhere
Will knock you breathless
Stop you dead, shaken
The water pooling in your eyes
Ready to brim and spill
Say the moon in the window
Floating filling the frame
The lime white clean white
Reaching limbs
Of plane trees lined up
Against that gentian sky,
Terracotta stone with brick, creams and pink
Irregular in patches
Rubbed and weather-worn
Solid stood for centuries
Golden fish with gills translucent
Curving winding
Blowing bubbles
Matisse women ecstatic
Ever given to the dance
And oh! Hepworth's polished precious child!
Or that soprano soaring
Crystal sweet sublime
Smell of cinnamon/ vanilla
Taste of perfect William pear
Some things sudden
Out of nowhere
Grab you by your collar
Pick you up and shake you
Jolt
Out of the daily the passing of hours
The stock and the regular
Not even clocked
A burst of beauty
Stand-out extraordinary
Message and portent
The signal is strong
It’s truth and it’s other
Transcendent, transforming
It shines in the drabness
Hits on the heart
Bang
Do you wonder we cry?
Sometimes a thing sudden
Out of nowhere
Will knock you breathless
Stop you dead, shaken
The water pooling in your eyes
Ready to brim and spill
Say the moon in the window
Floating filling the frame
The lime white clean white
Reaching limbs
Of plane trees lined up
Against that gentian sky,
Terracotta stone with brick, creams and pink
Irregular in patches
Rubbed and weather-worn
Solid stood for centuries
Golden fish with gills translucent
Curving winding
Blowing bubbles
Matisse women ecstatic
Ever given to the dance
And oh! Hepworth's polished precious child!
Or that soprano soaring
Crystal sweet sublime
Smell of cinnamon/ vanilla
Taste of perfect William pear
Some things sudden
Out of nowhere
Grab you by your collar
Pick you up and shake you
Jolt
Out of the daily the passing of hours
The stock and the regular
Not even clocked
A burst of beauty
Stand-out extraordinary
Message and portent
The signal is strong
It’s truth and it’s other
Transcendent, transforming
It shines in the drabness
Hits on the heart
Bang
Do you wonder we cry?
29th November 2009, Hounoux
Written after watching an excellent programme in which Roger Scruton discussed the vital importance of beauty.
ReplyDeleteBeauty is all around us, even when I am looking for it, I am still amazed when I see it in things especially when I didn't expect it!
ReplyDeleteI read this on my return from an escape weekend. I went with several other women one of whom had booked a youth hostel, Clun Mill in Shropshire. Walking along part of the Shropshire Way looking out on a patchwork of rolling fields I saw nestled in many of the dips pools of water from all the floods. They glistened in the sunlight reminding me of those mirrors stitched in Indian cloths and your poem captures the emotion I experienced of such beauty. As you suggest it jolted my inner state of seeing. The programme sounds facinating.
ReplyDelete