The Constant, The Beauty, The Squid – Scott Redmond

There is no constant like beauty,
for beauty is not a constant.
Give me the eyes of the squid, or the fly,
and suddenly I will see the hitherto unearned
elegance of the tentacle, or eroticism of the wing.

‘Beauty is a combination of qualities that please
the aesthetic senses’ is rational,
beauty is empirical.
For every beauty,
I can find a reverse.

Orchids are not beautiful,
that orchid is beautiful.
Sunsets are not beautiful,
that sunset is beautiful.
Love, creeks, dance, almonds,
life, strength, stones, breath,
shells, choirs are not beautiful.
That love, creek, dance, almond,
life, strength, stone, breath,
shell, choir
is beautiful.

Faith is not beautiful,
that faith is beautiful.
Your faith is beautiful.
Your faith that encroaches
like the candle tip into polluted night,
your faith that clings to solace like hope.

Your faith is the prototype
by which beauty should be measured,
that married the rational to the empirical.
Your faith is time unaltered.
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