When Twilight Pales
When twilight pales your umber locks to grey
and lines the apples of your cheeks with care,
takes the wind from your merry laugh, so gay,
and makes your step less sturdy on the stair,
remember this: I loved you from the first,
not for your youthful smile, nor supple limbs,
but instead for your spark, and constant thirst
to seek for substance beyond passing whims.
Who cares what strikes the fancy of the fool
that prizes most, and loves, at just a glance?
The mine is worth more than a single jewel,
whose value is determined just by chance.
For surface beauty is a passing phase;
it blooms in early spring, and then is past.
It will not warm the hearth through winter days,
nor serve as fuel to fire a love that lasts.
05 MAY 2005
05.3.05
On Beauty
Beauty is youth’s currency;
and those who have it spend
without a care for what may come,
as if it will not end.
The doors of hearts and shops alike
are open to its wants,
and offer endless credit
to the wealthy debutante.
Down every street, the merchants wait
with sweets and tempting fare
and act as if they’ll do the same
once no more money’s there.
But Beauty is a fickle coin,
like manna on the lawn
it ages quickly or will rot;
one morning, it is gone.
How fast the world reveals its claws,
and deadbolts fast its doors;
then woe to those whose meager stash
is gone, leaving them poor.
And how we mock the misers who
would hoard up Beauty’s gold,
and watch the world reborn each day
while they grow weak and old.
Spend fast, you children, while you can,
but don’t just buy, invest;
for once your purse is empty,
you’ll be just like all the rest:
Who scramble to regain what you
have callous, spent so free,
and find all they have left to show
is faded memory.
05 MAY 2005
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