A KIND OF BEAUTY

For my infant son, Liam

Motes like opals flash across your eyes;
At eventide, the gold dust on your skin,
Unwrinkled, shimmers in the raucous din
Of cloud-red firewood dwindling to demise.
The drear, dark hours on Cimmerians rise.
An ink-pitched pointillism strikes within;
Plucked suddenly, the startled mandolin
In fits and starts of air and spruce now cries.

The Bard came close to right – for love’s the food
Of music and of thrumming, fast-pricked tears
That warm jowls struck by fate and ill-will brewed
O’er years. The fall must come; for greater good,
Let trembling ring, and fear no tin-full ears:
God tunes the guts that fret on our rosewood.

– Rita Glennon

First published by Eremos magazine in August 2021. Revised in March 2026.