Tribute to a thinker and a poet

The death of the great Russian author and poet yesterday prompts me to post this, dug up from my archive.

SOLZHENIZIN’S QUESTION

Will beauty save the world?
I too ask myself, hearing news
of the latest massacre
despoiling God's own image
in vulnerable frail flesh.

Righting the imbalances of
malice and misfortune.
Remembering that the earth
is the Lord's, loaned for sharing
not a legacy to divide
among the strong and ruthless.

Rests not the world's hope on these?

Without a higher impulse
at work in transformation
of our sorry human state
good intentions turn to dust.
Unless that nobler vision
is lit up by the splendour
of a love uncreated
the shadow of self remains
to mar all our best efforts.

Perhaps love's very beauty
can entice us out of self
into the ground of our being.
Love infusing all just deeds
can overcome every ill
and make real the promise of
salvation for the whole world;
beauty is love's outer garb.

JKK 27.6.92