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Tag: cancione

How Bold and Beautiful: cancione

Published on April 25, 2025

If you would sing of beauty,
and would celebrate its worth,
do not forget the lost and wretched
living on the earth.

For if you take away the dirt,
the dregs, the mud, and slime,
you’ll find not much of what is left
is really that sublime.

For beauty comes from harmony
with each part of the whole.
There is no non-essential piece;
each atom plays a role.

And what is beautiful to some
looks pitiful to those
who merely glance at the outside:
at houses, jewels, and clothes.

But what is truly beautiful
is plainly on display,
and lives but for a moment.
It dies and fades away,

But that is beauty, sure enough,
a temporary thing
that suffers winter ’til it finds
rebirth in the next spring.

You cannot cage the beautiful,
nor keep it hid away;
there is no dungeon strong enough.
It will not, does not stay.

If you would sing of beauty,
know your song is just a dream,
and like its object will not last
nor ever more than seem.

25 APR 2025

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What is Beauty: cancione

Published on January 27, 2017

So what is beauty, really?
As a requisite to love
it seems far too subjective,
just some desire’s beguiling
design to snare a victim.

So what is beauty, really?
A figment caught by the eye
(or nature-made to seem thus)
to overwhelm reason’s care,
let loose the reins and run wild?

So what is beauty, really?
One sad half discovers whole,
making the universe sing
a melody so haunting
its croaking voice sounds lilting.

So what is beauty, really?
The eye knows only deceit;
the ear, a fading echo;
the mind, pale comparison;
the heart, hopeful delusion.

So what is beauty, really?
A single moment’s passing,
that folds future and present
up into both shroud and veil
for wedding, and funeral.

So what is beauty, really?
The weak, finite majesty
of illusion stitched in time,
the knowing of unknowing
that is a thing in itself.

27 JAN 2017

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For Starlight: cancione

Published on November 24, 2010

I cannot claim to know her;
at best, I’ve mapped the surface:
those little nooks and crannies
that she feels like revealing.
More knowledge would not help me;
to understand more deeply,
would take a lifetime’s effort
and skills beyond my grasping.

But what she deigns to show me,
that small part I can handle,
in just over a decade
has become sun- and moon-rise:
my alpha and omega.
There is no life without her,
no breath, no flowing current;
she is my one and only.

They say that men are simple;
we eat and sleep and venture
so few steps from our comfort,
content in our small fiefdoms,
but crave the complication
of woman’s advanced nature
to give our lives their meaning,
some sense of awe and beauty.

I can’t refute that logic;
and for myself, I wonder
where I would go for solace
if she were not here with me.
I know I cannot claim her;
more truthfully, she owns me:
and I live in her service,
my payment is her love.

24 NOV 2010

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The Presence of Love: a cancione

Published on April 6, 2004

I cannot say I know love
the way some would say they do;
I might not recognize it
passing on the avenue.
In a bleak and somber alley
on some cold and rainy night
some amour may say, “I see love”;
the chance I would, too, is slight.

It has found me now at last;
this to me, is a surprise,
In spite of all my efforts
to remain somewhat disguised.
I can recognize its voice,
the calm beauty it brings near;
and the soft words of comfort
that it whispers in my ear.

No, I don’t know to name it
or describe the way it walks,
but recognize the cadence
in the quiet way it talks.
I did not see it coming
yet its presence in this place
says that it knows who I am,
and will not forget my face.

06 APR 2004

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