Beauty Steals the Unsuspecting Heart

For beauty steals the unsuspecting heart

And in the blood a tremor of delight,

The sweet hypnotic urgency of love

Courses through dimensions of the soul.

Was it fragrance of rose or jasmine breath

That held me bound as in a trapper's net

My hurried steps now stilled, I could not move,

Intoxicant of life and its perfume.

Tell me I did not eat my bread with salt

And sorrow overcome by loss and pain

Drowning hope in an unstemmed flow of tears

When the torrent, death, swept my love away.

Beyond these few and paltry words I strain

To understand the order of things here

And chase the ghosts of sorrow from my breast

Returning to my consecrated way.

Beneath my feet the living soil, the earth

I cherish as I walk the wondrous ways

Of tree and vine and softly yielding grass

And watch in awe the wisdom blue of sky

When wingéd hues adorning leaf and limb

Scatter in sudden flight and stain the sky

With pigments blue and yellow-gold and red

And strangely, in an instant I am free.