The Larger Beauty



Up here, they seem like silver rivers
sliding gracefully through the valleys,
Sinuous shimmering moebius strips.

Without an ending or beginning
They course the canyons and the chasms,
And along them float the colored sails

Of skiffs, all skimming smoothly over
The flowing expanse of shining surface,
While far above the slow hawks wheel,

Watching the placid ripples below
And above them the delicate glide of silver
Sky-skipping jet wings echoes the quiet

slide of silver-stream-slipping skiffs
While over all’s soft blue-spreading sky
And the silent serenity of the sun.

And this is the city! This is the city,
But seen from the summit of hills, from the center.
A great poet once said that distance makes clean.

Yes, and I say that height gives beauty as well.
From the center, the high perspective, one sees
all around, the larger beauty of things.
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Submitted on May 01, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

42 sec read
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Quick analysis:

Scheme ABX XAX CXX XCX XXX XCX XBX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 834
Words 143
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3

Stephen Colley

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