When I lived in Manhattan, I found West 10th Street beautiful. Now, in rural Tennessee, I get as much pleasure from the belted Galloway cattle. Much of beauty seems to depend on what you get to see, on what is around you.

For my poetry, I make lists of “shiny things,” the mundane and random details of my days. I populate my poems with these. I adore the beauty in my goat Rye dancing, the fringe of pine needles hanging in my manzanita tree, and a website dedicated to artful, competitive shoelace tying.

Beauty will always resist too much of our taking things apart to take a look inside, which isn’t too say that beauty cannot be analyzed. But there comes a point when the mystery of what’s puzzled over exceeds whatever pieces are missing, which may not be missing at all.

The closer you get to becoming yourself, the more beauty you see. When I can see the world as it is, I will weep with the beauty and laugh with the beauty and all the imaginary shackles will disappear.

Beauty is an awareness of our true nature and being who we are. Going against our nature to become something else is void of beauty and originality. From the beginning of the universe, everything created by nature is unique. No two trees, plants and flowers are alike. A tree never tries to compete with another tree.

We know beauty when we encounter it, in whatever form, because it enlightens us, speaks to our souls, it both soothes and enlivens us, it nourishes and opens us to new possibilities and old truths, both in our internal and external lives.

Some find beauty in perfection, while for me, beauty can present as a rotted tree trunk, a fence missing slats in exchange for honeysuckle, an old house gone to wrack and ruin. I look into things that might have once been considered beautiful, seeing them with a fresh perspective, at the possibilities, as they travel through what is known as time.

What is beauty? For me, it is every tree, every cloud, every horse, every mountain, every good-looking child and woman I see; every inspiring poem I read; every wonderful dream I recall; every smart idea I hit upon; every bird chirrup I hear; every snowflake I catch; or every moment of happiness I experience, like this one, like right now.

Beauty is light, a reflection,
The glitter of sun, the way glitter
Sticks to your elbow,
The capture in your eye,
The way you sparkle touching the sky
Every day, the way you begin your day
Waking beside me.

Beauty is a manifestation of soul, all our souls, which are one, and which is the reason that every human is stirred by beauty.

Beauty is the wound that heals you as it digs further. It’s what all poetry, all art that is truly art is after. When I see it in poetry, I know it because, to paraphrase Dickinson, it takes the top of my head off. Beautiful poetry reaches between our ribs and makes a home there by shifting our organ around and becoming a part of us forever.

She keeps her sadness hidden, eyes clear and direct, mouth curved in a gentle smile, but when her hands touch the keys, a new richness seeps through her fingers, hangs for a trembling moment in the expectant air, then disperses into our changed minds.

Some people often speak about objects, concepts, and individuals as being beautiful. These are things that might stand out to them or resonate with them. In Buddhism texts, there’s often a reference to the beauty of nature—the trees, the flowers, the mountains, and the animals. The lotus, which is often seen in Buddhist realms, is one of the most beautiful flowers. The way it grows in the mud and erupts into a spectacular living thing is phenomenal.

When St. Augustine was asked to define Time, he responded, “If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.” That’s how I feel about Beauty.

I suspect that what we consider beautiful is often a bit strange; there is beauty in the ordinary, but beauty is that which is not ordinary. When I see or hear something beautiful, I feel it in my body and breath. Beauty exists everywhere, including in the midst of great suffering and ugliness; perhaps that kind of beauty is the most potent of all.

You ask me if I want to indulge in some panipuri & spicy pickled mango. I say no & you listen. You should have insisted. I would have said yes.

Writing should appear with multi-expressive structures, where the sentences bring the same deep idea, but in different superficial statements. In this mosaic transfiguring system, the sentences appear as mirrors, where every sentence is a mirror to the deep idea and to other one.