At the Museum
Beauty speaks from another dimension.
We may not agree.
Nor must the experience be pleasing.
Images of war, rapine and destruction
can be condensed:
proof itself of unvarnished truth.
The experience of beauty awakes.
It conducts us in
to experience what never has been
part of our own personal experience.
As if a spell has displaced us,
everything appears in light and unquestionably real;
judgment made and accepted in no time at all:
which is what we ask for.
Critique comes later
when original reaction has eased
and “beauty felt”
is critically dissected, lest it become
communicated like a dangerous disease:
in a phrase: Ho Hum!