“Beauty comes from life well lived.” —Wilbur Dee Case
They are all looking for a loveliness refined,
a beautiful design or feeling of sublime.
And there are moments when they find it, and refind
it, on their journeys through this world and this time.
And they are happy then, so very glad indeed,
the pleasure that comes to their lives gives them new rhyme,
and with that harmony and chime, they plant a seed
that grows, that climbs, and rises through the firmament.
It then becomes a part of them, and this they breed.
O how they wish that it could be made permanent.
But this they cannot do. And yet, they are not blind.
What they experience, whether joy or merriment
(though fleeting be the feeling they have in their minds),
they know it’s true and real, inspiring and kind;
and so they happily accept it…on its terms.
Featured Image: “The Wander above the Sea of Fog” by Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840)
The Wanderer
The Wanderer over the Sea of Clouds
by Casper David Friedrich shows one man
atop a rocky crag above the shrouds
of fog and mist that stretch to a mountain.
He and the tor he stands upon are dark,
as if they were a silhouette in black.
The picture of them there is rough and stark.
He is in the center. We see his back.
Before him, at his feet, the vista lies
in sweeps and lines of white and pale blue hues
that travel far beyond to distant skies,
which there, in air, between the two suffuse.
We see him viewing what he sees and seize
upon that thought that holds him at those seas.
I know some didn’t like the last words in that poem “…on its terms.” but the reason was manifold for using it. First, following my rhyme scheme, it should have been a rhyme with blind and minds; but falling after kind linked to refined and refind, made for too thick of a rhyming cluster. Second, the idea I was trying to get across is that searchers of beauty are not fools, and realize not everything in life is perfect, hence the break in the rhyme. Third, they nevertheless are content with even this flawed universe we find ourselves in. Fourth, I liked how all three syllable echoed the earlier triplet of rhymes, firmament, permanent, and merriment.