Finding beauty

In Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery there are a series of sketches of women by the pre-raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones. They are the preparatory designs for a painting, and with their sketched outlines, muted colours and slightly unfinished quality, I really like them.

While I haven't actually seen the real painting, there's a photo of it next to the series. It is bright and vibrant, painted with an assured hand ... and while I am not questioning the great artistic talent, and the time and effort which went into 'perfecting' the final version ... I personally like it far less than the sketches it accompanies.


This poem was inspired by reflecting on that reality.

How often

Do we wait?

Hoping for finished perfection

The vibrant colours of an assured hand

 Contained in these smooth, defined outlines

But this is already beauty

Hidden in the soft lines and blurred edges

In the hesitant shading of an uncertain hand

In the muted colours of drafted designs

So often

We wait

Hoping for finished perfection

The definitive answers to the questions of our time

And somehow neatly-packaged lives

Until looking back

Perhaps we glimpse

That this is already beauty

Hidden in the soft lines and blurred edges

In the hesitant steps into our swirling doubts

In the muted colours of our daily lives

Until we learn

Perhaps

That beauty is not only about completed form

It is found

Here

In the process of creation

In this

Our own

Unfinished

Perfection

Sunrise over Edinburgh

At the beginning of August, together with our friends from Northern Leg of Student Cross we spent an amazing weekend in Edinburgh. To make the 2am start and 9 hour coach journey worthwhile, I was determined to pack as much as possible into the weekend, and feel like we succeeded in doing exactly that. I came home tired... I have no regrets.

When you only have three days, one way to stretch time is to stay up late, and get up early, and we did both. My particular thanks go to the other crazy people who said yes to my random suggestion of climbing Salisbury Craggs at 4.30 on Sunday morning to watch the sunrise! It was stunningly beautiful. Neither a camera, nor words, can ever adequately capture that kind of thing, but someone mentioned poetry while we sat on the hillside that morning, so I guess that, became this:

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGtTOiMRp4g&feature=emb_logo)

Scrambling

Above silent, still-dreaming streets

Sleep rubbed from tired eyes

To turn

Towards mountain, sea and skies

As a glow of warmth

Creeps

Over jagged rock

And softened light

Breaks

Through dappled cloud

To blur

The sharp edges of our lives

This majestic moment

Incompletely captured

By camera’s lens

But safely stored

In the recesses of the mind

Here

Where buffeted in the breeze

Friendship laughs 

Beneath brightening skies

In this

The shared space

Of a daring to say yes

Live experiences

Not soon forgotten

And thus we pause

A brief hiatus in our busy lives

Until coffee and companions

Call us back

To the bustle

Of a city

Just waking to another day

But now

With this divine beauty

Forever nestled in a corner

Of our hearts.

Rainbows

When it rains, look for rainbows.