There Is Beauty

There is beauty when the rain breaks the flowers

And casts their dreamlike petals down

Their glory scattered white and purple

Across the soft and lonely earth

There is beauty when maidens fair of sweet and tender youth

Take holy vows and secret away in fortresses

Of rosaries, chants, and stone, their gorgeousness

Forever veiled from the gaze of lustful urgent men

There is beauty when visions marvelous and bright

Are glimpsed and forgot in the echoing violet dawn

But leave their subtle traces on dim unsleeping thought

Wondrous beacons to the wander-weary soul

There is beauty when a star drops from space

From sparkling heights of splendor to the dark and dismal dust

Bursting with ephemeral brilliance, its fall forlorn but fated

To leave a vestige of heaven on the earth

June 2, 2013