Beauty will save the world

Works steeped in truth and presenting it to us vividly alive will take hold of us, will attract us to themselves with great power- and no one, ever, even in a later age, will presume to negate them. And so perhaps that old trinity of Truth and Good and Beauty is not just the formal outworn formula it used to seem to us during our heady, materialistic youth. If the crests of these three trees join together, as the investigators and explorers used to affirm, and if the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light—yet perhaps the whimsical, unpredictable, unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar up to that very place and in this way perform the work of all three.

And in that case it was not a slip of the tongue for Dostoyevsky to say that “Beauty will save the world,” but a prophecy.

Click here to watch Why Beauty Matters - BBC 2 documentary by Roger Scruton shown 28 Nov 2009

kiss me now

kiss me now
now that the drops of water
on the window pane have dried
and weeping has ceased

kiss me now
now that the leaves have fallen
the birds have flown
and the winter has settled in

kiss me now
now that the bearing cannot be born
the burden cannot be lifted
and the flight to the desert is complete

kiss me now
now that it is dark and it's late
the pathway is deserted and the plants
hang their heads in shame

kiss me now
now that the depths are deeper
the heights higher and God's love stronger
than we ever could have imagined

kiss me now
now that the last person has gone
and there are no witnesses left to see
how the sun had so burned me

kiss me now
now that the day will not last long
now that the night will be even shorter
now that eyes are heavy with sleep

kiss me now
now that the drops ...
... have dried
and weeping ... ceased

beauty burns

beauty burns / truth shadows / goodness testifies
that faith / without works / is dead

set alight
keep rendering
she is there

the unseen essence
ever waiting to step
into newly created forms

she is
the soul
of the masterpiece

touching hers
means to touch
yours

grace-filled she arches
her slender neck:
her swan song

her first
and last
sound

rises
like smoke
dissipating within

and then silence
penetrating my dusk
my dawn

drawn / pierced / unseen

drawn out of the mist
pierced now the heart of darkness
unseen between worlds

it comes like a sword
to touch the edge of my soul
light and darkness divide

peace thrown like a bomb
into the heart of the war
exploding within

the pieces scatter
seeds in distressed soil to grow
morning's victory

unseen

the greater miracle
exists in spirit space
threading through the ether
golden threads -
the assurance, the conviction
the absolute certainty that is faith

drawn

the sting sucked out
and swallowed
deep-throated love
deep darkness
born in the bearing
of sin in one body
crowned with thorns
where, o death, is your victory?
where, o death, is your sting?
it is drawn
sucked out
swallowed
deep-throated love
in the deep darkness
expressed in the descent
down and down
to where
I am
found

pierced

rain piercing night's darkness
like giant tears expressing heaven's remorse
hard, dry hearts beat down
so much of the earth's great potential
someone's blood stains the grey city stone
and I sit alone within walls of my own making
silence and sun, doors and a waiting world
stepping out, hands to wring out every wrong
today the wind blows across my face
and it is enough, the piercing drives me on