“All is Completed in Beauty”

Witches Broom NGC6960

Day 10 of my 30-day writing challenge

I’m cheating a bit today, and posting a draft I did a while back during a creative writing workshop I co-taught with a colleague. I don’t plan to post many unpublished poems, because I have (the vaguest of) vague plans in the back of my mind for submitting them for publication someday. But since this one was an exercise, and would need revision before being submission-ready, I think I can safely throw it up. It also fits in well with the Psalms reflections I’ve been posting. The impetus for the poem was the first sentence, “All is completed in beauty” – a quote from a source I unfortunately can’t remember.

It’s untitled for now, because I am the worst at coming up with titles. Suggestions for a title or revisions are welcomed!

(My preview page is not showing stanza breaks, and I’ve noticed this wordpress theme doesn’t show them in published versions either, so I may need to explore alternatives. But the poem is written as three quatrains and a final couplet.)

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All is completed in beauty. Each rock
spinning alleluias from our silence
knows this in its secret heart. Art realized
from imperfection, anything held back
from full flowering of praise, finds its rest
in this endpoint that is not; transcendence
meaning, as it does, bursts of radiance
into infinity, like stars cresting
from their infant nebulae just beyond
the boundaries of visible light. We know
their warmth by the way the universe folds
around their fires, a lover’s response,
joyful gravity by which we are wooed
to God’s dwelling place, faith’s kingdom, our home.
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(image credit: “Finger of God” Nebula, wikipedia.)