Finding Beauty Poem by Dan Jones

While walking one day I came upon
A valley so wide, beneath the sun.
The colour of all my eyes can see,
A simple yet pure ivory.
No river there was to carve this land.
No features to see, all quite bland.
Except two mountains, one on each side,
Which rise quite high with mighty pride.
These mountains there stand no snow atop,
And rise quite fast until the stop.
Onward I go far between the two,
Down the valley where nothing grew.
I see the mountains begin to wane
Down to the source of this terrain.
Where the two join at a narrow pass,
A steep ascent and thick black grass.
As I arrive I cant help but smell
Musk in the air clear as a bell.
And with it arrived a smell so sweet,
Not alone but others discreet.
So I climb the pass set in the face
Of the mountain two's meeting place.
A place it seems where the land is pink.
A contrast to the grasses ink.
On this flagrant ascent my mind's set.
The ground and grass are slightly wet.
This the source of the fragrance before,
One I'm finding hard to ignore.
The air here a rich and heady brew,
Making it hard just to get through.
At last I reach the top of the climb
To see a plateau quite sublime.
Before me was plain just like the first
Valley I'd already traversed.
Simple it is though still I could not
Figure where my journey had got.
In front I see a dip in the ground,
And in the distance two great mounds.
Forward I march with joy in my soul
Arriving at last at the hole.
I look down to see a swirl inside
The hole that seems so very wide.
I wonder at the strangeness I see.
The beauty longing to be free.
In time I have made my way around
The pit so deep, set in the ground
And head on toward the hills afar
On pristine ground without a scar
Then I stop awhile to wonder why,
There is no one here, only I.
Am I first in discovering this?
This land so pure in simple bliss.
A beautiful land with features few.
So strange, yet familiar too.
I see before me the hills are near.
Another valley also clear.
The hills themselves appear broad and plain
As all has been in this terrain.
Yet they differ, as upon their crowns,
Their colour seemed a deeper brown.
There is motion here within the floor,
Moving the hills with an odd rapport.
I feel as though the world is alive,
My presence here making it thrive.
My attention, it's life, it's power.
Scaring me, making me cower.
So on I ran into the valley,
Although 'twas too small an alley.
Instead I clamber up to the peak,
To find the way past that I seek.
The crest did heave at my gentle touch.
The ground moved too hardening such
Then suddenly nothing, all was still,
Safer for now atop the hill.
From here I see to the east and west
South and north to see which is best.
To the sides I see two arches great
Rising and falling in equate.
And far to the north they disappear,
Joining again to the rear
Of the mountain that stood over there.
Unlike the rest was not so bare.
I began my descent from the crest
To continue on with my quest.
And came at once to the sheerest wall
That if I climbed was sure to fall.
So around I went along the edge
Until I met dense foliage
Made of long thin vines of brown and gold
And through these I took a good hold
To climb the side of this mighty bluff
And reach the top but it was tough.
There I stood upon this lofty height
and saw close by two pools of white.
Then further in a paler azure
Followed by deeper black so pure
These strange pools with their colourful bands
Hiding in the strangest of lands
Between them rose a slope to a view
To see again all I'd been through.
But first just below, what I had found
A cavernous hole in the ground.
The cavern was ringed with land of red
I hear whispers, as things unsaid
This turning of air goes back and for
From the cave like an open door.
The rising and falling of the land,
Kept in time by the cave's demand..
And so I look out upon the land.
Majestic, beautiful, and grand.
The valley at my journey's begin
Formed each side by the mountains twin
The narrow pass I arrived at then
The pit after the fragrant glen
And then the plain and the rolling knolls
The cliff and the cavernous hole
With all in sight I finally see
The land I trod, what it could be.
And from this point of high up survey
I understand the grand display
Of how beauty is here every day
In all these tiny little ways
The finest of forms in all the Earth
And only I have seen its worth.