Perspective

This is something I wrote several years ago. I'm reposting it for Poets United. I've always loved concrete poetry.

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all    

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

in memory

you stand

an abstraction

of sensuous delight

however

reverie out

of all proportion

with grim reality

does not withstand

a detailed scrutiny

i write to invent

not re-create

therefore

i must

state

you

are

a matter

of perspective

-->

*On the Birthday of John Keats

Finally! I've been on something of a dry spell lately, but thinking about one of my favorite poets has inspired this little piece. This is also my ticket onto the Poetry Bus, where 120 Socks has given some excellent prompts, including the one I chose -- "amber." You can read other bus poets here.

ON THE BIRTHDAY OF JOHN KEATS

Some things deserve to be captured,
frozen for all of time,
made more precious by framing
in the lens of the mind.
Like fragments enclosed in amber
or beauty and truth in rhyme,
some things deserve to be captured,
frozen for all of time.


* Today is actually the anniversary of Keats' death, but I like the title, and so I'll keep it. Maybe I'll post this again next Halloween, the actual birthday of John Keats. (Thanks to my daughter with the Ph.D. in English Literature for setting me straight. I knew there was some reason I had Keats on my mind...now, I'm thinking that death is a birth of sorts, so maybe I wasn't far off!)

speckled promise

within the ivy

shadowing my garden wall,

as if appointed

by some keeper’s unseen hand,

a hidden, speckled thing,

light as rain,

heavy as a promise,

silently reminding me

that sweetest songs

are often those unheard

perspective

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

in memory

you stand

an abstraction

of sensuous delight

however

reverie out

of all proportion

with grim reality

does not withstand

a detailed scrutiny

i write to invent

not re-create

therefore

i must

state

you

are

a matter

of perspective