Like a great painting etched by crazing Time,
So has your visage grown more rich with praise.
His lust to ravage leaves you more sublime,
For age so shackled can all eyes amaze;
But how can youth with years seem yet more strong
When all else tested crumbles to decay?
Even Helen cast in patinated bronze
Leaves but a battered memory of her day.
No beauty can hold out against such siege
Even bared on canvas, bronze or marbled stone.
No icon shaped by man can yet achieve
A legacy that ages can’t o’er throw.
Still, beauty’s grace embossed in minds of men,
Endures in echoes wrought by hand and pen.

©Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.