The Poetry of Beauty

All around us is
the poetry
of beauty.

The age-old impassioned yearning
of humanity
for the timeless, unsurpassed achievement
of created exquisiteness,

in sound
or in art,

in poetry
or in form,

unfolds for us
that which is beyond ourselves.

As we hunger for this beauty--
this order--
spending hours with the paint brush
or the pen,

with the clay
or the computer,

we toss aside our weak attempts
and start again.

We search each stranger's face
for the perfect beauty
that we know exists

for even our  imperfect minds
have conceived it.

Beauty will save the world.
~Theodore Dostoyevsky

Originally published in Falling Plum Poetry on June 11, 2009