Not All Beauty Succumbs to Time
Not all beauty succumbs to time.
Oh, yes –
I know
the blooms of spring,
summer’s effulgence,
the flames of autumn –
all flare, fade and die.
But there is a beauty that
deepens, spreads and persists
in time
and past time:
I have glimpsed it
and it has detained my glance,
till I can hardly look
for the shining of it:
the beauty I saw in the bud
when you were young,
now in full bloom
but instead of fading
deepening,
deepening toward the mother
who brings forth all things.
Here, take these autumn flowers,
place them in the sun
before the frost comes tonight,
and while the delight of momentary color
plays in your eyes,
I will glimpse
what the descending cold
can never touch.