{random poetry #5}

{The Beauty of Things}

To feel and speak the astonishing beauty of things - earth, stone and water,
Beast, man and woman, sun moon and stars.
The blood-shot beauty of human nature, its thoughts, frenzies and passions,
And unhuman nature its towering reality.
For man's half dream; man, you might say, is natures dreaming, but rock
And water and sky are constant - to feel
Greatly, and understand greatly, and express greatly, the natural
Beauty, is the sole business of poetry.
The rest's diversion: those holy of noble sentiments, the intricate ideas,
The love, lust, longing: reasons, but not the reason.

[Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)]

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{A man said to the universe}

A man said to the universe:
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

[Stephen Crane (1871-1900)]