Poetry Friday - "The Altar"
A friend of mine died this week. ter369 lost her battle with cancer and died on Sunday. She was a lovely, bright light and I will miss her. She loved books, opera, reading, writing, Harry Potter, travel, photography and understood the wonders of real mail. She was an amazingly brave person, and faced her illness with a dignity and sense of humor I admired greatly.
This seems fitting for this week:
The Altar
- Charles Simic
The plastic statue of the Virgin
On top of a bedroom dresser
With a blackened mirror
From a bad-dream grooming salon.
Two pebbles from the grave of a rock star,
A small, grinning windup monkey,
A bronze Egyptian coin
And a red movie-ticket stub.
A splotch of sunlight on the framed
Communion photograph of a boy
With the eyes of someone
Who will drown in a lake real soon.
An altar dignifying the god of chance.
What is beautiful, it cautions,
Is found accidentally and not sought after.
What is beautiful is easily lost.
This seems fitting for this week:
The Altar
- Charles Simic
The plastic statue of the Virgin
On top of a bedroom dresser
With a blackened mirror
From a bad-dream grooming salon.
Two pebbles from the grave of a rock star,
A small, grinning windup monkey,
A bronze Egyptian coin
And a red movie-ticket stub.
A splotch of sunlight on the framed
Communion photograph of a boy
With the eyes of someone
Who will drown in a lake real soon.
An altar dignifying the god of chance.
What is beautiful, it cautions,
Is found accidentally and not sought after.
What is beautiful is easily lost.