Wasted Grace

Andrew said something in a post a few days ago about art being useless. This threw me for a loop.

I am one of those dreary romantics that believe art gives meaning to life, has the power to transform and is a way of expressing the divine.

I was wondering if he really meant what he said when I remembered a small poem he wrote almost exactly five years ago. I carry it around in the folder of my own poems I take to readings and when I go someplace new I usually start with it.

Free Verse

I have often thought when God first worked
the coarse matter of this earth
He created no beauty. It began among us
in the silver flutter on an insect's wings,
or the dim life in an earthworm's mind —
Light drawn to Light! He neither wanted
nor cares that fish dance in schools,
or the red cherry taunts the fox —
that all our poetry is a wasted and useless grace,
like the charming bells drawing me back to Mass.

Audrey