From Ocean Floors of Sand to Clashing Galaxies

In some supernal sense, as glorious

As fields of saffron-bearing flowers with heads

In basking sun, men make victorious

Degrees of transformation from the reds

Of desert arches to those realms above,

The realms of poetry, and song, and art

To royalty of fragrant purple . . . love.

Their thoughts find vistas on a chart

That Plato was too ignorant to know.

These Shakespeares, prophets, Sargents, sybils, saints

Lift even pebbles up to heaven’s glow —

Deploying only minds and words and paints.

  The artists bring down stars to ocean waves

    And send their stabbings down to guessing caves.

~ Phillip Whidden