What is beauty?

[Honey_Ryder62]

Is something beautiful because others and our upbringing tell us that is what it should be, because our eyes tell us it is visually so or because it just is.

[ClaesGefvenberg]

Is something beautiful because others and our upbringing tell us that is what it should be, because our eyes tell us it is visually so or because it just is.Perhaps in part all of the above?

/Claes

[rachel]

I agree, all in part of the above,
and speaking of beautiful, a new and very beautiful picture.

[Countess]

Oh, great question! I once wrote an answer to it, but don't recall what it is at the moment - which effectively does nothing to answer the question.

Beauty and art are closely aligned. Beauty, like art, provokes a feeling. Uh, this is what my character says of it, which - in lieu of the pat answer I once wrote - will have to suffice:

"Look," Julius sighed, exasperated by his friends’ ignorance. "How do I explain this so you can understand? For you dating is a function of the rational mind. You find a woman, run her through your mental program, and if she meets your specifications, then all systems are set to 'go'. It's not like that for me. I'm an artist at heart and have a heightened appreciation for beauty, so I tend to see the world in terms of aesthetic pleasure or offense. When I look at something or someone, I'm searching for beauty in all its myriad forms - in the colors of a rainbow, in the contours and lines of a face, in the love a mother has for her child. Women are the summit of this ideal, and when I gaze at them, I expect to feel the excitement I get when I'm looking at a gorgeous sunset. When they don't inspire me, I get disappointed, and I don't want to feel disappointed, nor do I don't want anyone I date to feel it either."

[rachel]

wow that is wonderful countess, really rich in feeling.
I love reading your work, I usually find myself feeling strongly for the characters. thank you for that.
And of course you KNOW that you are beautiful.

[Virgil]

Perhaps in part all of the above?

/Claes
Yes, some aspects of beauty seem to be culturally driven, some seem to be objective from whatever drives the brain to work how it works.

[~Lady Callisto~]

Beauty today is more attributed to something physical rather than the nature of the person. Though I would personally vote for my latter statement as I would want a beauty that surpasses time and is greatly remembered for its spirit than a beauty fleeting in nature, such as in the case of physical beauty, which tends to be slowly eroded in time.

countess,
Have you ever published a book? Oh, how I would love to read any of them! You are such an endearing writer. I hope to see more of your writings! They are inspiring and captivating, word for each word. What an extremely talented and not to mention beautiful woman! :nod:

-Lady

[vinide]

Beauty is included in a bigger system that we call art. Art, actually, is included in a bigger system that is formed up by the creations of human being and the forms of nature.
Beauty, in its very intuitive form, is nature. it is formed by harmony and perfection: it can be only phisical, there is no beauty with no bodies.
Art, includes beauty because it includes all the forms of perfection. But it is has also more, as we can find for example in the poets of the 1600-1700 in England: there is the Sublime, for example. the sublime forms are not perfect, but they take the breath away, like a huge storm or a tremendous tempest. they can be part of art but not of beauty. beauty is still.

it will be all a different discussion if someone argues that art is a human creation: then we just express it in a different linguistical perspective...

[Aurelian]

"When Narcissus died the pool of his pleasure changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, and the Oreads came weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it comfort. And when they saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of their hair and cried to the pool and said, "We do not wonder that you should mourn in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he." "But was Narcissus beautiful?" said the pool. "Who should know that better than you?" answered the Oreads. "Us did he ever pass by, but you he sought for, and would lie on your banks and look down at you, and in the mirror of your waters he would mirror his own beauty." And the pool answered, "But I loved Narcissus because, as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty mirrored."

-- Oscar Wilde, Poems in Prose, 1894


Couldn't have said it better myself. :D

[Helga]

Every time a famous man comes to Iceland, reporters ask him about the women. For decades we have been certain that the most beautiful women in the world come from Iceland. We even have a theory explaining why. Many theories... The most famous one is that the vikings when the went over England and Ireland at night stealing everything in sight, they kidnapped all the beautiful women they could find and brought them to Iceland. The famous actors always say that the women are beautiful, but they also say that they are 'easy', I hope you understand what I mean. Often it is enough to be blonde to be considered beautiful, these days we know we have the most beautiful women because miss world is from Iceland. This is the obvious aspect of beauty, but beauty is in so many things, in everything.
To me true beauty is in something that brings tears to my eyes. I don't think you can define beauty in words. It dosen't have to be something you see, it can be something you feel or read or whatever. I think we 'see' beauty in different ways.

This story about Icelandic women has followed us for generations and is a part of the twisted way to make people think of beauty in a certain way.
People often seem to think that if they want to get a head in life they need to be a striking beauty or very charming. (beauty also often seems to be in good skin, wonder why).

[TBtheG]

To me, beauty is anything you perceive to be well..... beautiful. It's all in your mind, evrything is.

[IrishCanadian]

To me, beauty is anything you perceive to be well..... beautiful. It's all in your mind, evrything is.
I think it depends on what kind of beauty. I agree that most beuaty is in the eyes/mind of the perciever. But Truth is beautiful too; and that is where it becomes a philosophical question because Truth is not necessarily in the mind.

[TBtheG]

Drop some acid, and then tell me what truth is.

[Regit]

TBtheG,
Perhaps you could expand on "drop some acid". Then I think I might have read some philosophical texts giving possible definitions of Truth to fit this line of argument. Thanks.

[jackyyyy]

Many theories... The most famous one is that the vikings when the went over England and Ireland at night stealing everything in sight, they kidnapped all the beautiful women they could find and brought them to Iceland. Geepers, Helga. I best be getting on a row boat over there and bring 'em back. :lol:

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Beauty is a bikini wax 'n waitin' for yer nails to dry
Beauty is a colored pencil, scribbled all around yer eye
Beauty is a pair of shoes that makes you wanna die

Beauty is a
Beauty is a
Beauty is a
Lie

Frank Zappa

[jackyyyy]

Beauty is innocence.

[blp]

To be a bit simplistic about this and to leave aside, for the moment, the women of Iceland, which is beginning to sound like a good place to move to, I think you can distinguish, to some extent, the beauty you can take in at a glance - a pretty girl, or boy, a flower, a nice picture, and the beauty that comes, somehow, from contemplation. I'm not a great meditator in any accepted sense, but I do like to sit around doing nothing at times and there's usually a point that comes where objects, light, sounds, the whole package become, I guess, more present and suddenly, without having changed appearance, seem beautiful (NB I never found dropping acid the least bit useful for this). I was very stuck on this kind of experience for a long time and it is pretty good, but it's also a bit useless really. The I Ching's hexagram 'Grace' (number 22) sorted this out for me: 'Grace, beauty of form, is important, but it is not the essential thing and should be used only sparingly.'

[IrishCanadian]

Thats interesting blp. has anyone ever had a conversation with an ordinary looking person and found them to be progreessively more beautiful as the conversation continued? I know I have. I'm sure theres a psychological explaination for it, but its part of the reason that I believe beauty has two levels: from the eyes of the beholder, and the indescribable level that contains things like "innosence", "truth", emotions (including bad ones) ... etc.

[jackyyyy]

Because we use this one word 'beauty' to affirm all levels, maybe other words should exist. As a perception, beauty changes with knowledge. It is subjective. If beauty is a question of the value I, you, we place on it, then how should we value beauty collectively, as in the Miss World context? I don't think we can, and I doubt the Pageant will put a disclaimer on our tv screens. However, it would be a fine thing, if we could establish this in our 'good' society.

To me, beauty is consistently contained by the word 'innocence', which extends across all ages, all people, all notions; because lack of it is corrupt and ugly. While I say this, its then possible to be both, beautiful and ugly.

[Grumbleguts]

I would class Sophia Loren as one of the most beautiful women of all time but I would never claim that she exudes any kind of innocence, quite the opposite. She has a worldly, knowingness which is particularly alluring.

I am not saying that innocence can't enhance beauty in some cases but I think that to define it as the essence of beauty is going too far.

I know what Irishcanadian is talking about. I think some beauty can be purely physical, what is known as being photogenic, and some people only become beautiful when they are animated, when their personalities show through. The second kind seems to last fafr longer in my opinion.

[jackyyyy]

Sophia Loren is beautiful to me, and personally, I think its because she has natural beauty. Onthe other hand, I think my car beautiful, but its not natural. The question is, 'what is beauty' when it can happen to be a moment (light, sounds, as Blp is describing) or the personality of a person (as IrishCanadian is describing). Is there a way to draw the line between beauty and beauty, or is this a voting issue. I read somewhere about human attraction; some people can be attractive to more other people, therefore more people will perceive them as beautiful. Personally, I find girls from Mars ugly, but guys from Mars don't.

[blp]

I know what Irishcanadian is talking about. I think some beauty can be purely physical, what is known as being photogenic, and some people only become beautiful when they are animated, when their personalities show through. The second kind seems to last fafr longer in my opinion.

You could equally say that the second is more fleeting, that just as everyone's allegedly able to be famous for fifteen minutes, they can all be beautiful for fifteen seconds, when they find their voice or the right lighting conditions.

Baudelaire said beauty was truth. The Greeks thought it was geometric harmony, embodied in the (idealised) human body and in the various Classical orders - Doric, Ionic, Corinthian etc. The question of whether these harmonies represented 'truth' is somewhat problematic, but probably, the relation of natural beauty to artificial beauty can best be represented as a scale rather than a clearly demarcated binary. To call Sophia Loren a 'natural' beauty is making a rather large leap of faith in cosmetics, couture and cameras. People who are photogenic are notorious for disappointing in reality, to whit, 'Turns out she's tiny and her face is really plain.'

[Chinaski]

Beauty is a social construct. You only have to look at concepts of beauty over time and space. Then again, there are evolutionary reasons for finding somethings 'ugly' - disease etc. as this would confer an evolutionary advantage, by avoiding contagion etc. - anyhow, really must get off this damn site and work.

[blp]

anyhow, really must get off this damn site and work.
You can run, but you can't hide!

[The Unnamable]

The indefatigable voice sang on:

'They sye that time 'eals all things,

They sye you can always forget;

But the smiles an' the tears acrorss the years

They twist my 'eart-strings yet!'

As he fastened the belt of his overalls he strolled across to the window. The sun must have gone down behind the houses; it was not shining into the yard any longer. The flagstones were wet as though they had just been washed, and he had the feeling that the sky had been washed too, so fresh and pale was the blue between the chimney-pots. Tirelessly the woman marched to and fro, corking and uncorking herself, singing and falling silent, and pegging out more diapers, and more and yet more. He wondered whether she took in washing for a living or was merely the slave of twenty or thirty grandchildren. Julia had come across to his side; together they gazed down with a sort of fascination at the sturdy figure below. As he looked at the woman in her characteristic attitude, her thick arms reaching up for the line, her powerful mare-like buttocks protruded, it struck him for the first time that she was beautiful. It had never before occurred to him that the body of a woman of fifty, blown up to monstrous dimensions by childbearing, then hardened, roughened by work till it was coarse in the grain like an over-ripe turnip, could be beautiful. But it was so, and after all, he thought, why not? The solid, contourless body, like a block of granite, and the rasping red skin, bore the same relation to the body of a girl as the rose-hip to the rose. Why should the fruit be held inferior to the flower?

'She's beautiful,' he murmured.

'She's a metre across the hips, easily,' said Julia.

'That is her style of beauty,' said Winston.

[jackyyyy]

Baudelaire said beauty was truth. The Greeks thought it was geometric harmony, embodied in the (idealised) human body and in the various Classical orders - Doric, Ionic, Corinthian etc. The question of whether these harmonies represented 'truth' is somewhat problematic, but probably, the relation of natural beauty to artificial beauty can best be represented as a scale rather than a clearly demarcated binary. To call Sophia Loren a 'natural' beauty is making a rather large leap of faith in cosmetics, couture and cameras. People who are photogenic are notorious for disappointing in reality, to whit, 'Turns out she's tiny and her face is really plain.'I never met Sophia Loren to be 100% sure, but she sure looked good to me, even if was for 15 minutes. I know what you mean, and you're right, of course, and I agree completely with regard to truth. And, interesting about mathematics, 'beautifiers' will point out symmetry as a perfect thing, so maybe we can add that to the list. You equalled my point about 'innocence', but, we still need another word here, else everyone strolling out of a salon with a new haircut or plastic body will think they are also 'innocent', 'truthful', and 'mathematically symmetrical'. :lol:

Beauty is a social construct. You only have to look at concepts of beauty over time and space. Then again, there are evolutionary reasons for finding somethings 'ugly' - disease etc. as this would confer an evolutionary advantage, by avoiding contagion etc. - anyhow, really must get off this damn site and work.hmm, if a disease was ugly to another disease, how would it propagate? Just a thought.


The indefatigable voice sang on:

'They sye that time 'eals all things,

They sye you can always forget;

But the smiles an' the tears acrorss the years

They twist my 'eart-strings yet!'


I like that, and good to see you back in reaction!

[MelanieD]

I thought, to that question I could quote one paragraph out of my book, but I must then translate it:

Schönheit hat zu tun mit geometrischen Formen, die in gekrümmten Linien aufeinanderstoßen. Ob wir die Art und Weise, wie sie sich treffen als schön empfinden, hängt vom Kulturfeld ab, in dem wir aufwachsen. Die angenehme Empfindung, die uns vor einer blühenden Frühlingswiese oder dem schwellenden Teint einer Achtzehnjährigen überkommt, sind Programmierungen wie alle anderen. Die Schönheit an sich gibt es so wenig wie die Qualitäten Gottes. Sie sind Code-Wörter für das Unmögliche. Die Frühlingswiese ist ephemer, ihre Prachtenfaltung nur das Vorspiel zur Sexorgie, die sich die Natur aus Gründen der Selbsterhaltung immer wieder erlaubt. Lust will Ewigkeit, sagte Nietzsche, sagte Ehrentrud. (Und ich frage mich, woher sie das wußte.) Hier ist das Drama des Wesens, das sich denkt, sein Paradox: es kann nicht sein und nicht nicht sein. Die Butterblume geht stumm ihren notwendigen Weg zur Verwesung, wir möchten die Ewigkeit des Augenblicks. Wir fühlen unser Sein als unbeweglich, jedoch gehören wir nicht zum Seienden, da wir der Zeit unterworfen sind, wir nicht ewig sein können. So mußten wir die Liebe erfinden.
Die Griechen entdeckten die Schönheit in der Harmonie der Zahlensysteme, die sich übersetzen lassen in Eigenschaften und Formen des Raumes, nach deren Gesetzen sie die Natur nachmachen konnten: kreativ sein. Das Menschenbild erhielt bei ihnen seinen höchsten Begriff von Schönheit, der unser aller Erbteil ist. Doch lieben, lieben können wir nur das Vergängliche, weil unser Metabolismus nicht das Ewige erlaubt, auch Energie ist flüchtig. Liebe ist die Spannung zwischen unserem Ewigkeitsanspruch und seiner Unerfüllbarkeit. Wir lieben wider alle rationalen Beweise der schieren Unmöglichkeit der Liebe. Sie ist, was uns vor dem immer drohenden schwarzen Loch unserer Nichtexistenz rettet. Wir müssen nach dem streben, das nicht in unserer Hand liegt, und uns zufriedengeben mit dem, was uns zufällig zugeteilt wurde. In diesem Paradox zieht sich das Leben hin, liegt sein Potential und sein Reichtum.

English:
Beauty has to do with geometrical forms that join up in curved lines. Whether we conceive the way they meet as beautiful, depends on the cultural field we grow up in. The agreable feeling that overcomes us in front of a blossom swelling meadow or with the translucent skin of an eighteen year old, is a matter of programming as everything else. Beauty per se is as unexistant as God’s qualities. These are code words for the impossible. The spring meadow is ephemeral, its splendor forplay to the sex orgy about to begin for reasons of self-preservation. Lust wants eternity, says Nietzsche. So this is the drama of the creature that thinks itself, its paradox: it cannot be and cannot not be. The buttercup goes its necessary way to decay silently, we want eternity of the now. We feel our being as motionless, however we do not belong among Being as we are subject to time, unable to be eternal.
Thus we had to invent love.
The Greeks discovered beauty in the harmony of the numerical system which can be translated in qualities and and forms of space, in the rules of which we can imitate nature: being creative. The image of man reached with them its highest standard of beauty and has become the heritage of us all. But love is possible only to the transitory, as our metabolism does not allow the eternal and energy is brief. Love is the tension between our claim for eternity and the impossibility for its realization. We love against all rational proof of the virtual impossibility. It is, what saves us from the ever manacing dark hole of unexistence. We have to strive for something that is not in our power, and content ourselves with what was handed us by chance. In this paradox our life streches over time, finds its potential and its richness.

[jackyyyy]

I thought, to that question I could quote one paragraph out of my book, but I must then translate it:Thats very interesting, Melanie. I knew about the symmetrical relevance of shapes and lines to beauty, but this explores it more, and thanks for the translation. May I ask the name of the book, presuming its published, and do you think this applies to all forms of beauty? Do you think I can apply it to light, sounds, personality, as well as Sophia Loren?

[IrishCanadian]

Thats really incredible stuff Melanie. I think the second paragraph partains more to love than to beauty. Love is beautiful but beauty is not love, of course I don't need to be telling you that. Perhaps its just the translation though-- I can't speak German. Anyway, I have to go with jackyyyy here: I'd love to read your book.

[Geoffrey]

I've always loved Baudelaire's explanation of what beauty is:
'The beautiful,' he said, 'is composed of an eternal, unvarying element of which the quantity is excessively difficult to determine, and of a relative, circumstantial element which is, if you like, in turn or all together, period, fashion, morality, passion.'

I first read that in 'Baudelaire' by Jean-Paul Sarte - I think its top notch.

[jackyyyy]

I've always loved Baudelaire's explanation of what beauty is:
'The beautiful,' he said, 'is composed of an eternal, unvarying element of which the quantity is excessively difficult to determine, and of a relative, circumstantial element which is, if you like, in turn or all together, period, fashion, morality, passion.'

I first read that in 'Baudelaire' by Jean-Paul Sarte - I think its top notch.
Eternal and Circumstancial. So, eternal beauty and circumstancial beauty. That works for me, thanks. :nod:

[Bandini]

I agree.....

[Geoffrey]

beauty is vast, as should be its description. The contradiction seems to me that neither of them are applicable at all anyways. I do see your point though.

[Bandini]

Vast? Strange adjective to describe beauty innit?

[jackyyyy]

beauty is vast, as should be its description. The contradiction seems to me that neither of them are applicable at all anyways. I do see your point though.Yes, its vaste, and the word 'beauty' is too vaste sometimes. What you gave here are two headings to use. I can always say, truth and innocence have eternal beauty and my car has circumstancial beauty. Though at any given moment my car may be 'circumstancially' more important, the eternal will prevail. You provoked some interesting ideas, but why did you write, 'not applicable at all anyways'?

[Geoffrey]

"You provoked some interesting ideas, but why did you write, 'not applicable at all anyways'?"

This was in reference to 'Eternal and Circumstantial' What I mean to imply is that, with something so dependent on individual perception as beauty it is impossible to include it's many magnitudes. This said, by using such contradicting adjectives, I believe that Baudelaire sums up beauty well by displaying that it includes so many magnitudes that, essentially, beauty could not ever possibly fit into one defining statement.

I believe that this concept of defining the undefinable is well displayed in the writings of the Tao Te Ching. "The tao that can be told in not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name." .... "Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only manifestations."

I think that the idea of beauty is very applicable to such ideas. Being definable is to have limits to certain places, ideas, perceptions, extc. It tethers the concept the our world, when truly, the essence of beauty cannot be held anywhere - it exists with or without us.

But thats just my opinion on the subject, and I am aware that there are scientific explanations of beauty - but for me such ideas are simply far to constraining. But, I am still not at ease with one thought on the subject; is man kinds view of beauty specific to only man kind? What would an animal say to be beautiful if it could speak? Would it be different or the same... I'd like to think that it would be the same, but I fear otherwise.

[Kop_Princess]

beauty is nature

[Gozeta]

"Beauty is the phenomenon of the experience of pleasure, through the perception of balance and proportion of stimulus. It involves the cognition of a balanced form and structure that elicits attraction and appeal towards a person, animal, inanimate object, scene, music, idea, etc." by wikipedia

That pretty much sums it up. simple....

[optimisticnad]

beauty: political too. e.g. Aesthetics of a period reflect the regime/time it is being written under, my lecturer said something so fantastic about the political nature of beauty...but can't recall it from the top of my head...and notebook not handy but its along those lines anyway.

But like all the definitions of beauty here, 'beauty is nature' made me laugh-a good thing, not criticising , it also seemed...'hippy' like to me!

[Scheherazade]

Came across this passage while reading The Name of the Rose by Eco:
For three things concur in creating beauty: first of all integrity or perfection, and for this reason we consider ugly all incomplete things; then proper proportion or consonance; and finally clarity and light, and in fact we call beautiful those things of definite color. And since the sight of the beautiful implies peace, and since our appetite is calmed similarly by peacefulness, by the good, and the beautiful, I felt myself filled with a great consolation...I agree that harmony is a great part of 'beauty'.

[jackyyyy]

I agree that harmony is a great part of 'beauty'.I agree too, its definitely up there with the eternals.

[blp]

Every definition still makes me start in with, 'but but'.

Now I'm thinking of Francis Bacon (painter) talking about the beauty of bloody carcasses hung up in butcher's shops.

[The Unnamable]

“There's beauty in the silver, singin' river,
There's beauty in that rainbow in the sky,
But none of these and nothing else can touch the beauty
That I remember in my true love's eyes.”
Bob Dylan Tomorrow is a long Time

[blp]

Or even...


Child

Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new
Whose name you meditate--
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little

Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical

Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.

-- Sylvia Plath

[jackyyyy]

Every definition still makes me start in with, 'but but'.

Now I'm thinking of Francis Bacon (painter) talking about the beauty of bloody carcasses hung up in butcher's shops.There is beauty in a notion, as sound and light. Whether its pure of thought is another matter, as I am sure Hitler thought he had a beautiful promise to deliver us.

[blp]

Here's a quote I have on my wall at home, from a Russian Constructivist manifesto:

'Under the guise of the eternal laws of beauty, the depraved taste of the oppressors.'

[jackyyyy]

As Stalin would rid the body of its lice and Tse Tung would prop his constant of beauty in a uniform, a shower, to cleanse of Earthly notions, still leaves only notions.

[The Unnamable]

Or even...


Child

Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new
Whose name you meditate--
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little

Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical

Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.

-- Sylvia Plath
Great stuff. Also,

“Let the stars
Plummet to their dark address,

Let the mercuric
Atoms that cripple drip
Into the terrible well,

You are the one
Solid the spaces lean on, envious.
You are the baby in the barn.”

From Nick and the Candlestick by Sylvia Plath

[Bandini]

Amazing poem.

[blp]

Great stuff. Also,

“Let the stars
Plummet to their dark address,

Let the mercuric
Atoms that cripple drip
Into the terrible well,

You are the one
Solid the spaces lean on, envious.
You are the baby in the barn.”

From Nick and the Candlestick by Sylvia Plath

Totally great. And the two could almost be the same poem.

[downing]

,,A thing of beauty is a joy forever'' (John Keats)

[The Unnamable]

Plath’s tenderness is often overlooked - perhaps because, as in both poems, it’s torn from the jaws of oblivion.

In order that this isn’t criticised as off topic, I’ll say that there is some kind of beauty in those little, fat, pink things called children (especially the ones between baby and toddler). I was recently watching my mate’s son (about ten months old). He was staring into space and I knew that even if he were able to articulate his thoughts, there would be no point in me asking him what he was thinking at that moment. The world from which it comes has gone forever for us.


Children's Song

We live in our own world,
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
The adult subterfuge.
And though you probe and pry
With analytic eye,
And eavesdrop all our talk
With an amused look,
You cannot find the centre
Where we dance, where we play,
Where life is still asleep
Under the closed flower,
Under the smooth shell
Of eggs in the cupped nest
That mock the faded blue
Of your remoter heaven.

RS Thomas

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Lovely poem Unnamable. Once again you dig up a gem from your vast store of words for every occasion.