February 7: Mortality, Arthur Rimbaud, "Being Beauteous"

I can't say much about this poem, except that it moves me deeply.  Maybe because of my father's situation.  Maybe because I'm tired.  Maybe because I've been thinking about mortality a lot.

Saint Marty is feeling a little fractured tonight.

Being Beauteous

by:  Arthur Rimbaud

Against a fall of snow, a Being Beauiful, and very tall.
Whistlings of death and circles of faint music
Make this adored body, swelling and trembling
Like a specter, rise...
Black and scarlet gashes burst in the gleaming flesh.
The true colors of life grow dark,
Shimmering and sperate
In the scaffolding, around the Vision.

Shiverings mutter and rise,
And the furious taste of these effects is charged
With deadly whistlings and the raucous music
That the world, far behind us, hurls at our mother of beauty...
She retreats, she rises up...
Oh! Our bones have put on new flesh, for love.

Oh ash-white face

Oh tousled hair

O crystal arms!

On this cannot I mean to destroy myself
In a swirling of trees and soft air!