Beauty Is

On Beauty – Kahlil Gibran

And a poet said, ‘Speak to us of Beauty.’

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?

And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?

The aggrieved and the injured say, ‘Beauty is kind and gentle.

Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.’

And the passionate say, ‘Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.

Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.’

The tired and the weary say, ‘beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.

Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.’

But the restless say, ‘We have heard her shouting among the mountains,

And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.’

At night the watchmen of the city say, ‘Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.’

And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, ‘We have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.’

In winter say the snow-bound, ‘She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.’

And in the summer heat the reapers say, ‘We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.’

All these things have you said of beauty.

Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied,

And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.

It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,

But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.

It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,

But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.

It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,

But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.

People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.

But you are life and you are the veil.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

But you are eternity and you are the mirror.


My Response:

Beauty is enlightenment through empathy. Beauty is a feeling which invokes feelings. Beauty is the most subjective desire – it is where you want to be and who you wish to be with. When your natural connection with someone – or something – is able to provide insight into their experiences, into your own experiences, or anything else among the natural world.

The distinguishing feature of mankind is the size of our brains; it is what gives us the wisdom between good and bad, right and wrong. Therefore, it is only fitting that the beauty of man lies not in the personal strength and aptitude of one, rather, the ability to convey and inspire. With this logic, it can be said that beauty varies between people. What one considers beautiful and thought-inspiring may only be considered average by another. The truth of this world is that beauty is found in everyone (as cliche as it sounds, just hear me out). Beauty is found in the sentiment provided by another – the fact is that our personal sentiments are based on our experiences, some which match with others. We share perspectives with some, but not with others. It takes a perfect alignment of common interests coupled with dissimilar experiences to attain the attraction to a specific individual – these alignments will differ among people with different values, beliefs, etc.

Beauty is not desire, it is attraction. Attraction which is felt, and you wish to feel it again – to slow down and truly grasp the essence of a feeling. To long to feel it once more; and forever. Wistfulness. These feelings which incite passion. And altogether, if attained, there follows a sense of fulfillment. A fulfillment which is refreshed every morning, where passion goes to die and dreams are remembered.

Beauty is a connection with the soul, an aspect unknown to oneself. This connection enables one to see truth. This connection is the eternal mirror.

 


My Poem:

And once again, my thoughts wander off

back to you.

Away from the frivolous duties of life, I am compelled by my heart to return to my home. In memory, if nothing else.

It is in these thoughts that I adore incessantly,
where I speculate ways to see you smile
to hear you laugh
Reminiscing every touch of yours
and your scent
your taste.

All to procure a smile of my own – to be happy, in all your beauty. And yet, this mild gesture does not encapsulate even the most basic essence of your beauty. For it is something within the tangible; and your beauty is deeply ingrained within the intangible my dear; within ecstasy – the sentiment.

The first and foremost being
Wistfulness;
my longing.
More specifically, it is the epiphanies in the midst of my wistfulness which contribute to your sentiment
The thoughts inspired from your absence.

Then it becomes Passion,
The desire built up in my thoughts is ignited by your presence
Fueled by the timelessness of our moments
my hopes of them to be undying, never ending.
Such vigor is not among my natural qualities, and yet
you manage to dig it out from my depths
and alongside it comes aspects of myself unknown to me;
inner accentuation.

And lastly,
a quality once found and never forgotten:
unspoken Fulfillment.
to be permanently content without the acknowledgment of happiness being found,
to wake up everyday dying to hear you say my name
the hidden smile from every glance,
to sleep every night knowing I have someone out there with me,
to know God is watching over me
and my prayers have been answered.
In you. My Beauty.

 

 

 

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *