Plucking Beauty – A Poem About Life and Eternity

Plucking Beauty

I once plucked beauty
out of experience
serendipitously like wild flowers in the country,
delighting in what new joy
life was going to allow me to discover
and show off in vases upon my windowsill.

But my curiosity is stagnant
and often vanishes, jaded
over what I know I'll find -
that everything alive is already withering,
beautiful for an instant
but quickly crumbling to dust.

And yet, it is not beauty
that has changed.
It still shines as bright
as when the Logos called it
out of the void.
It is my limited vision,
this human decision
to make everything about me
and interpret the world
through selfish eyes.

In an instant gold is tarnished,
gifts become entitlements,
and beauty looses its brilliance
when it's used for self-indulgence.
I once looked for beauty
because I found you there.
You spoke to me out of your creation
like any great artist does.
Now I find myself tumbling off the path
and stumbling towards naturalism.

Beauty is not beautiful
because it is fleeting.
It does not speak to the human heart 
because it is temporary.
No. Beauty speaks because it's divine intuition,
nudging us towards the eternal reality,
reminding us that there is something
beyond the material world that 

Never dies,
Never withers,
Never decays,
Never says good-bye.

Life loses its luster
when our lives are reduced
to merely grains of sands
upon the beach of time.
The breath of God
resides within each one of us;
never lose sight of paradise.

-Justin Farley

Soul Notes – Poems and Reflections

If you’re searching for meaning in a world that feels too busy, too loud, too dominated by endless scrolling, Soul Notes is a place to feel heard. A few times a month, I send reflections on nature, mental health, and spirituality. Words to carry with you.