Phases of beauty

Time does not move us
         we are within time
masters of our own fate
         to the extent that we transcend it
Creation
         a new text in the world
patterns of words and sounds
         exempt from entropy
the second law of thermodynamics
         that energies decay
Have Shakespeare’s sonnets decayed
         or the odes that Keats dedicated
to the transcendence of truth and beauty ?

Her hair falls across her face
         in the course of the evening
: it moves it lightens it relaxes
         it comes down
and so the features are reframed
         the skin tones alter
the subdued light plays
         with the texture of her skin
the intense glow of her eyes
         a deep confident brown
her words that rise and fall
         that come and go in waves
that wash over me
         absorbed as I am
in the shifting phases
         of her beauty
Time moves through me
         as I bear witness
to her breath
         to the softness of each syllable
that emerges from her lips
         I have no need of a Grecian urn
it is all there before me
         not just before my eyes
but every sense in my body
         hungering
for every expression
         of herself

Patterns of flesh and bone
         patterns of thought and feeling
Time does not move us
         we move within it
and if we care
         we seize the moment

John Lyons