Beauty’s Bequest
By Odin Roark

Some say
We all have one
An enigmatic wild stallion within
Seeking sounds and symbols
To become a tundra of words
Its landscape of expression

Here
Time’s pace and rhythm
Carried by nature’s patient breath
Echo’s passion rides
Between the canyons walls
Of mind and heart
Knowing well the joy
Of unbridled passage

Thought by many
As a poet’s gift
This tenuous control
Of eager restlessness
Seeks little repose

Painfully aware
The vanishing of a moment
The eclipse of a thought
Might recede into
Infinite darkness
The stallion often bolts

For

Taming forces are everywhere
Incapable of recognizing the exquisite
Ignorant of imagination unlimited
The have-nots fight to fence in
One’s galloping unfurled spirit

Armies have trodden atop this soil
Dynasties have horded such open sky wealth
Yet efforts to make permanent captive
This ambulant prerogative
Find endurance undeniably present

Some wonder…

Why must that
Deemed beautiful
Inspiring
Tenacious of will
Remain so vulnerable?

Yet

For the stalwart
Just as a rose
Seeks perpetual awareness
Between a book’s pages
Beauty’s elegant passing
Knows to embrace its powdery remains
Riding atop eternity’s trade winds
Levitating in perpetuity until…

Tomorrow’s tomorrow
Presents another sunrise
Where light and color
Moved by nature’s gentle breath
Prepares shadow’s trace to encounter
Saddled ugliness trying again to
Bridle perfection’s grace in motion

And so

Poets continue to offer
Beauty’s essence
Privilege
And ingenuous smile

A magical state of mind
Deserving indomitable freedom
Hopefully never harnessed