THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD

The city inches towards
the dawn.

Most of it is still
( not awake )

but sleep
has disowned me.

I stand and stare
as this world

comes into being
as it dresses itself

in sunlight
the new moment

as it glistens
translating the now

into the song
of a passing bird

so beautiful
I call out

your lost name
amazed

that this world
moving through space and time

does not contain
you.

You who have gone
beyond even

the great silence

and my tears fail
to bring you back again.

"The beauty of the world
hath made me sad. . ."

I tell my reflection
gazing through glass

a startled bird
flying through my face.

*

The title is taken from The Wayfarer by Padraic Pearse ...a poem from my long long ago Irish childhood. My brother would have learnt this poem at school as well. Now its sadness has become my sadness.

The Wayfarer
by Padraic Pearse

The beauty of the world hath made me sad,
This beauty that will pass;
Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy
To see a leaping squirrel in a tree,
Or a red lady-bird upon a stalk,
Or little rabbits in a field at evening,
Lit by a slanting sun,
Or some green hill where shadows drifted by
Some quiet hill where mountainy man hath sown
And soon would reap; near to the gate of Heaven;
Or children with bare feet upon the sands
Of some ebbed sea, or playing on the streets
Of little towns in Connacht,
Things young and happy.
And then my heart hath told me:
These will pass,
Will pass and change, will die and be no more,
Things bright and green, things young and happy;
And I have gone upon my way
Sorrowful.