“The Occasion”
What if beauty is a substance
in this world of accident and remorse,
finite and particular and dispersed
like the sound of larks singing
carelessly into the morning silences
regardless of audience or absence or
any other need? And what if our
sole purpose is to seek what falls
into the crevices of disregard,
gratefully reaching into the stream
with dry hands and parched lips?
And what if time is only the occasion
for gathering these shards of loveliness
into the heart’s hungry vestibule?
M. S. Burrows
31 March 2009