Beauty

Dictionary.com defines beauty as “the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).” Notice that it says the quality is present in the thing or person, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so wouldn’t a better definition be “a quality perceived to be present in a thing or person?” And where do these perceptive filters of beauty come from?

This morning I searched images of “beauty” on the internet and saw photograph after photograph of heavily made-up young women. Beauty is an industry, an ever-shifting unattainable ideal to sell cosmetics, fad diets, and lifestyle products. And sadly, that industry manipulates people into such a desire for that ideal that they will mutilate themselves and destroy their health.

But that is superficial beauty. For my abstraction of beauty, I tried bokeh with my 70-400 zoom lens for the first time. I used my snowflake-cut lens cover filters I created last fall in the mirrorworld and found intense pleasure and deep satisfaction in the overlapping colors and patterns.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday (#SoCS)

Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness is “tip.” Linda challenges us to use the word “tip” as a noun or verb. Here’s a quote from my morning pages this morning:

The tip of my pen caresses the page. I touch the tip of my nose with my fingertip. Where is the tipping point? When beauty tips. That’s a fun play on words. Here’s a tip: if truth is beauty and beauty truth; just stop lying. The next tip was on the tip of my tongue, but got stuck in my teeth. At the tip, tippy top, there’s nowhere to go but down, and make sure the tips of your skis don’t cross.

Maria L. Berg 2022

The Poetry Prompts

NaPoWriMo

Today’s challenge is to write a poem based on a word featured in a tweet from Haggard Hawks, an account devoted to obscure and interesting English words.

I especially liked the lists of terms, like names for groves of trees “A SAPBUSH is a grove of maple trees,” and names for sounds that birds make “To GLACITATE is to honk like a goose.” Since I saw a swallow swooping over the deck yesterday, I chose “To CHELIDONIZE is to chirp like a swallow.” Chelidonize can also mean to beg.

Poem A Day

Today’s prompt is to write a second chance poem.

The Poem

Beauty Tips

When beauty tips
where is the tipping point?
Which wrinkle in the
symmetrical features
breaks the illusion?
Is it the crooked tooth
in the blaring white smile
The slight scar across the bridge
or the broken spirit
The pitch and timbre
or the words
The smell of the breath
or the skin
The taste of the kiss
or the cooking?

When beauty tips
like a swallow
swooping steeply
chelidonizing about
my doors
instead of skimming
along the waves
filled with ribbons
of gold light dancing
like a mating dance
of tiny electric eels,
we have passed
the tipping point.

When beauty tips
what is the angle
of skewed reflection?
Which derivative of
ideal surface blinds?
Will the faulty be given
a second chance to see:
The generosity behind
the crooked smile
The courage responsible
for the scar
The sharp wit
inside those tones
The chemistry and history
ritual and tradition
depth and knowledge
beneath?