Beauty is Imperfection

By Eric Rasmussen

 

A high buzzard

touches the mind

In a yard

of bleached bones,

Bare, calloused feet

heel the knocks

of sand,

 

Under cloud

dark beet,

No

water to sustain

Not even tongue

of root. Nor rain

to lick the rocks

 

In the turtle-lidded

insides

Of shells, once eyes:

A beggar collects

pennies for the temple

Pennies are pain’s gold.

 

Then from under the cock’s crow,

And hook-winged Molloch,

A star strumpet’s snow angel sallies

Across the desert floor

 

With His word

Absolution,

To clean the mind

Of its preoccupations

Cleanse rude

light off the Eastern rain

 

Through the

heat

Cool winding rose

Surfaces

 

All in the mind

 

August is reconfigured,

To expire

in good time

(Originally posted March 28, 2007)