Surrounded by Beauty... or Not

It’s wonderful to be surrounded by beauty:
oil paintings, watercolors and sculpture
in a large house blessed with high ceilings
and a yard with trees;
one from which in summer you can make
the dark fig jam
even sweeter bee hive:

jam you eat on buttered toast in winter,
seal and give to friends
in response to remembered kindness:
keeping friendships warm
almost swarming together like bees,
not so tight as to hinder or smother,
but, easily fit together as sisters and brothers;

so that as you age, lose bodily beauty, grow old,
and your memory fails:
you learn other aspects of beauty,
deflecting self-interest towards others,
succumb to love
until kindness is what you become;
having lost all pride;

you freely ask help when it’s needed;
respond to kindness received,
forgiving hurts both those intended and not;
become, finally, at ease in yourself;
have, at last, let go those things you failed to accomplish,
knowing well you tried
even as you cried in frustration.

OR

There’s a different life you might have lived:
successes turned out to be loss,
your heaven a self-made hell
you intentionally imposed on others.
Frustrated, mind and body sore,
and swelling up: a balloon of hate,
thinking only and always of yourself.

Too late now for restitution, you became defiant,
cursing both yourself
and anyone else you’ve enabled,
especially those who sought to help you too late.
An insecure and revenging fool,
you turned approval you sought
into fervent hate.

The games you played
created a continuing fragmentation
you could not control even had you even tried.
Instead, you called yourself God,
creating hate, losing support
even those
from whom you previously purchased support.

Now, you’re condemned, have finally come to the end.
You have no friends,
not even the women you bought.
The glory’s gone and also any honor
along with lies contradicting yourself
and easily by anyone proved wrong
to undying shame.