Material Ideals

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem 

The men who made cathedrals, workers, not

The architects; the Indian men who built

The temples, stone designs completely fraught

With beauty, curved sweet lettering in gilt;

The skirted men who raised the Giza tombs

With hieroglyphic certainty; the men

Who raised the Aztec altars for the dooms

Of cut out hearts; the monks of calming Zen

Who built their shrines; none, none of these had names

That we can know.  The emperors have gone.

Though they were named and had their fancy aims,

These greats are like an ancient long-lost dawn.

  What lingers from this faceless, faceless art

     Is art.  Its absolutes do not depart.

~ Phillip Whidden