Don Pearson - Beauty

(For Annabel Jones)

I have walked with beauty, seen it set in stones,
Run my hands across it, thrilled to hear its tones,
Tickled it from rivers, swum with it at sea,
Joined with it in passion, watched it run from me.

I've seen beauty on the plains, running in the grass,
Soaring in the mountains, brought close through a glass,
Glimpsed it in the forest, awful, striped and fell,
Caught its flashing azure flight in a lakeside dell.

Now the Teign is swathed in mist, merging with the sea,
There a fern is growing on a mossy tree.
To the West, the looming moor births a wooded combe,
Here some frills of lichen brighten up a tomb.

I found beauty round the world: Taj Mahal, Mount Cook,
In the great cathedrals or fossilized in rock,
Kathmandu and gay Paree, Niagara and Rome.
Now I rest amidst it, in my Devon home.

8th March 2011

Don Pearson

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/beauty-290/