On Beauty V

By

George O. Obikoya

That swallows will wander no more must amaze;
as that the sun sets in the east; rises in the west:
but not that the rose is a chameleon in veils;
its red, varied hues at different times of day;
rainbows in a bloom waltzing an elegy with time;
yet brighten souls plagued by relentless stress;
like mine, baffled by the sky being under my feet;
as my soul fetes with the gods up above with glee;
and in harmony, sing celestial songs of praise
for souls for so long sequestered, in the void.

Emptiness that will sure vary from age to age;
my mind, truly penitent will beg faith to reign;
the cycle of life longer than ever before;
nascent adults now novel as teens used to be;
truth, a flying carpet transiting the mundane;
cooed by the holy dove on the fabric of life;
atavistic anamnesis deities ordain;
deities, galore my weary mind truly needs;
lonely and so sour it sickens a pesky gnat;
like the swallow, cruelly hurt; the rose, engaged.

My woes aside, to engage, must define my being;
owl-faced marsh hawks my quick eyes set to lime;
to satiate my earthly mind nestled in faith;
with beauty the gods happily invest with truth;
even as time alters the truth my eyes perceive;
a pretty face that once enamored virgin maids;
etched per chance in a mirror; a scaffold of ruin;
gory, teared, my woebegone face in looking glass;
my mind, trying to soothe a forlorn soul assures,
will, remain my face as long as the Yangtze flows.

It will ever be the beauty that was the child;
the gift from yonder to grace a temporal plane;
the treasure trove of truth that deities bestow;
for faith to open and enlighten the void;
that in sacred strive my soul will ever believe;
my sternly mind, never mazed, sated, or bored;
even as the bliss it craves lasts only a while;
a quiet storm blows its totemic beauty away;
the story of my life time and space magnify,
shrunk: to size by my transience in the void.

As the moon tarries in the sky on a gay morn,
aerobatic sparrows in formation on show;
like the Volta, at the lake varied fishers meet;
to celebrate the twelfth of the zodiac signs;
agree on where my sky is being forever moot;
zenith or nadir, the cycle of death recedes;
into the depths of the void where it belongs;
that my mind may ever ponder the holy vault;
as the veritable wellspring where beauty dips;
buried in sacred truth my mind verily craves.

A mind that so must ruminate issues ahead;
mull why customary life cycle is brand new;
sanctified truth that Hebe dowers the vernal eye
hidden from the view of that, now labeled old;
my life after heroes and gods, villains and saints,
my omnipresent angst; a spent and fangless cat;
its teeth locked in a new reality in the void;
of generations schooled in misery and war;
for who that truth in beauty is love is a game;
goblins fooling around in my head like to, play.

Yet, to adore beauty hallowed belief ordains;
sacred omen of truth that only faith endows;
in accretion of order of the gods in forms;
approximations of reality in my mind;
truth as it matures in faith by heavenly grace;
a certain process along the consciousness chain;
exact, my mind ensures, so it matures, not fade;
why it must love the godly truth beauty conveys;
in eyes like a Nereid’s my heart venerates;
love that resonates values deities prescribe.

Why my faith in beauty must be forever strong;
my only hope to thrive in a wicked void;
as forms are forms; genuine only by my faith;
which then the onus is on me to cultivate;
within, accretion in an atavistic pool;
to enrich my spirit on the consciousness train;
patent in the void in many shapes and shades;
to open my eyes to love, cosmic truth reveals;
and savor the pleasure and peace of holy love;
inspired; faith in the sacred aegis of the gods.

And my mind must cower to tell value from facts;
as truth, the bearer of facts, my faith stipulates;
outside me formidable images of the truth;
my values will always cloud even in my sleep;
values that at the core defy provincial bounds;
the transcendental truth; throwback in the void;
transmitted in time by faith, purveyors of truth;
beauty the carrier of truth and pleasure; and love;
spring of joy my mind will lose left to dry;
why it upholds its value to nurture its faith.

It ever will as no knowledge is value-free;
beauty and value are really one and the same,
facts, value will ever sire; my mind, by faith,
in me, a being; here live in the void; feeling;
thinking; a voyager in consciousness for aye;
aware of my duty in transit along its chain;
faith channels my desires to honor holy truth;
truth it needs to be sure it doesn’t wilt away;
to illumine the void to relieve my angst;
free my mind to celebrate beauty once again.