| JOSEF LESSER
Out of Sadness often Beauty………
Out of sadness often beauty floats,
from the river of pain
over memory lakes
a lone ash rises out of the burning grief
soars high, but like the forest regenerates,
and through passing seasons swallows
and friends come home to prattle and play.
Out of sadness often beauty floats,
a thousand flames in hand across the midnight sky
the gypsy caravan of faith, while wind with grace
shows not to blow, counting every torch,
the total sum of those who went away that day.
Songs and prayers and crystal talk of reverends,
of presidents and queens sound like stringless lutes
where no coffin represents the congregation.
Out of sadness often beauty floats,
Shah Jahan wept nights and days when childbirth
like a judge pronounced his love away. Then
from cells of time his frozen ache transformed
the lofty Taj was born. Now
the faithful have a home to enter paradise
others, noses pressed against the keyhole of doubt
see the real, observe
from the corrupt waters of Minamata a mother bathes
a man her son.
Do I weep for his mercury broken brain
the mothers surrender
or the photographers eye?
Out of sadness often beauty floats,
the leafless sapless tree still standing straight.
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