If Beauty Had Never Existed Poem by Patti Masterman

She lies quiet, beneath the ground
All the pain and passion shelved,
Her beauty mute, muted by earth,
And her child mute in the grave, besides;
Silent now, no gasps or crying-
Though nothing's fainter, than where no sound reaches.

Her brow uncreases for the centuries now,
Testament to a peace, so hallowed..

Earth's placid beauties, wrought with death
Enfold the cold arms, of richer dirt,
A small place to hold what once was huge,
A plot of ground, our heart to sieve:
Such beauty wasted on a tomb;
Such innocence, from emptied womb.

Pure loveliness mixed with stunted time- is it a crime
That beauty once lived, only to die?
For what if beauty had never been-
Except for its death, stillborn within..

(in memory of Tricia, who was buried today,
just three short weeks after her baby Silas was interred)