The Thing About Beauty

Hard to say what it is

a perception

some place in your mind

that’s nice to visit

provoking, inspiring

aphrodisiac spiritual high

feeling of peace

washing over you

 

Existing only

as an enigma

punctuating the

harsh realities

and daily conflicts

 

Is it outside ourselves

our eyes mere windows

offering fleeting

glimpses driving us

to despair that which

we cannot possess

 

Or is it only from within

we are able

to see and feel

through hearts unencumbered

by desire for

luxury and excess

or driven by

jealousy, hate

power and control

 

Is it a choice that

should we take the time

to give attention

to any one thing and

find beauty anywhere

does that ability

teach us humility

and wonder in life

 

Are we loved for

being beautiful or

are we beautiful

because we are loved

can beauty exist

without ugliness

the ying to its yang

does it lose power

in becoming

all too familiar 

fading into the

wallpaper of life

 

What is its purpose

it seems the things of

most beauty are also

of least use…. flowers

art, peacocks, landscapes

are these the tools with

with which to save the world

 

Reviews

[Brett Campaigne]

you pose strong questions to the idea of the beautiful... you go above and beyond the same old aesthetic critical poems about how everyone only sees skindeep and all that bullshit and you walk right to the heart of the matter..... though the heart too had layers and space to move through to find yet another core.

[Kelley]

I have thought about this quite a bit myself.
Beautiful???? What makes it beautiful?
Like you said " It's in the eye of the beholder."

Your mind works beautifully girl....smiles

Kelley

[Brjden (Bridge-Den) Cre..]

Very beautiful and thought provoking!! I love this piece tremendously! You make so many valid and dizzying points about beauty and our feelings and attitudes towards it! This is an incredible piece of art April! ENTER THE LIBRARY!!

[An owl on the moon]

Such a deeply thought provoking work! Your words move through the external and internal realm of beauty, and delve so powerfully into the eternal as well. So masterful!!!

[Keith]

designed almost solely for the purpose of procreation it has through such become a genetic predisposition and therefore a latent redundancy of society as a whole... useless due to its' beauty?... ahhh I try not to allow such prejudices though one must admire it when combined with the seemingly recessive traits of intellect, caring and thoughtfulness.

[papaed]

Very well put together! I too consider beauty from a philosophical point of view. Some discussion of it is in many of my pieces. Several things struck me. beauty fading "into the wallpaper of life" for becoming familiar could be expanded to also fading as we age (personal experience). Beauty from inside remains if cultivated. There is much "harsh reality" in this world... and those things which appear to have beauty serve the purpose to keep us from sinking into despair. I contend that body beauty has developed and evolved as a point of survival... healthy and able to reproduce creates much of the criteria. I also contend that nature has a rhythm, a mathematical balance (fibonaccci numbers, golden section, pi relationships, etc.) that we sense innately and this dictates much of our sense of beauty.

Thanks so much for an inspiring write.
papaed

[R J Askew]

This thoughful piece shows you have the capacity to focus on a concept and draw a wise poem from it. Ach, The Pointlessness Of Beauty. But then we gravitate towards it instinctively, so maybe it has a place in nature's plan. But then less than beautiful people also seem able to coochy coo, so maybe beauty is not a pre-requisite to the survival of the species...unless they have some deep inner beauty, well hidden under layers of modesty. Or maybe there is a beauty in the sheer vigour of the survival instinct.

[Karma]

I like the ideas portrayed about beauty, another great piece! Xoxo