Dale Lloyd

Mona Lisa, you could not have known
how far your quiet gaze would roam
that centuries would pass you by
and still be held by what you hide.

You lived before our borrowed light,
before our restless, fractured sight,
yet even now we stand and stare,
arrested by your beauty rare.

We look upon your countenance,
ensnared by more than chance or skill.
That measured smile, so warm, so calm
it asks the soul to wait, be still.

What truths lie sheltered in your eyes,
kept safe beyond our need to pry?
You do not speak, yet seem to know
what we have lost, what we forego.

A single glance our hearts are drawn
into a mystery not our own.
Not mere intrigue, nor clever art,
but something echoes, within the heart.

For years we wondered: flesh or dream,
a living face or crafted scheme?
Yet standing here, we sense it plain
this beauty reflects another Name.

Thousands have come with weary eyes,
their hope thinned down by compromise.
They stand before your silent frame
and leave – not whole – yet not the same.

For in a world gone dim with night,
where truth feels fragile, bent, or slight,
this beauty whispers, firm and clear:
Grace has not fled. God is here.

Not that the canvas is divine,
nor holiness in oil confined
but through the work, a signal shown:
beauty is not at all self-owned.

It comes from that we did not make,
a gift the darkness cannot take.
And in that smile, restrained
we glimpse the glory that remains.