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, in patinated bronze
Leaves but a battered memory of her day.
No beauty can hold out against such siege
Even stamped on canvas, bronze or marbled stone.
No icon, born of man, can yet allege
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.