Outlasting

Beauty

i

If we come to find

something wrong

with every fellow 

man we meet,

what are we

to ask ourselves?

What constitutes

disappointment

turned so 

inside-out?

It seems to me

there are

two kinds of wrong.

One endearing,

and the other 

defeating.

I’ve sifted through

myself for

which is which.

The endearing wrong

is rooted in experience,

misfortune, origin.

It is beyond

one’s control.

The defeating wrong,

I’m afraid,

is a confluence 

of ego, mind,

and

unconsciousness;

a refusal

of responsibility

for one’s own 

vibration,

an imbalance

that in breaking

the circle

consequentially 

maims the flower.

How could a daisy

love you not?

If a circle 

made of

spirit

can summon

the dead,

then

mine is a beauty

fashioned from

heartbreak.

And so I’ve begun 

to notice things

that weep,

or appear to weep.

Acacia trees letting go

of their pink petals,

the condensation 

from a steel pipe,

a sky too full

of rain.

What if

I 

no longer

need to be

loved?

Would I

finally 

be free?

With a youthful body

beyond my reach

I’m no longer 

baited

by beauty;

a standard

I can’t meet.

Happiness is

a grace

after all.

No longer

a target,

too nuanced

for arrows;

I am more 

mandala. 

Tuned,

circular,

self-sustaining,

with a sun

at it’s center.

ii

“My son had a breakdown,”

said the woman

with a bee keeper-like

sun bonnet.

She hovered over 

my deck chair

where I’d come 

with my book of poetry

so as not to appear

simply sun-seeking.

Her shadow 

superseded me

as she came closer

and added tentatively,

“But he’s better now.”

Her absence

of self assurance

unsettled me.

I immediately wanted

to know more

but contained my

curiosity,

tinged by a purple

aberrant 

half smile.

I always feel 

more than I show.

My son had a breakdown.

But he’s better now.

Her words rang in my brain

 a broken cathedral bell.

How am I better now?

I wondered.

What is this

miraculous recuperation 

one sentence away from

my own 

asymmetric harrow?

iii

I outlasted beauty.

Now

I am an abstract 

painting on the wall

in a museum 

depicting someone

who loved

another

more than himself;

once

stolen by Nazis,

recovered

and displayed

as proof

of my heart’s

progress.

Peter Valentyne

May 29th, 2019