Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty

What is beautiful? You are. The most beautiful.

I read, once, about how in China for a long time (almost a thousand years), culture valued the smallness of feet as standard for beauty.  At a young age, the girl's feet were bound, and toes were frequently broken in an attempt at inhibiting growth. The whole process is quite gruesome, and wikipedia discusses it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding) in miserable detail. All delicate attraction was tiny feet.
I have naturally small feet - not a benchmark of beauty in America - and I don't believe my beauty, or the beauty of anyone, is wholly reliant upon the the size of feet, the symmetry of face, stars in the eyes, in cheekbones high and prominent, chest, legs, or hairy heads. Of course I believe in a beauty of the heart, the spirit, the mind - or want to believe. Well, at the end of the day, at least you are beautiful.
I'm a perfectionist. I'm not perfect. What is beautiful? Sometimes I catch myself thinking beauty is everything in a bubble around me, exclusive.

no sound falls from the morning sky
no sound wrinkles the evening pool
~ Maya Angelou

There is so much that needs doing. Loving, living so tightly bound, around our hearts, ours and mine. A diffidence of difference, where's the line? The eager ember golden coin of sunlight burrows through these blinds, today's surprise, I suppose. Where are the grey skies? The writing weather, wherefore art thou, Raineo?
I'm trekking into the center of Oregon, tomorrow and this weekend. I've made posts nearly every day for a long while. It's strange to be missing some. Maybe I'll sneak some in.

rose petals falling
beneath an autumn red moon
will not adorn your unmarked graves
~ Maya Angelou

I'm full to bursting with life and everything. Struggling to learn things that I'm naturally lousy at, and suffuse them through my livelihood, and then pulling off the balance act of community that ever threatens to tip one way or the other. There's a gray pallor over the heart, a fractal of cumulus clouds with rains and sun-breaks. The ventricles central still hammer the same, the anvil forge beating a rhythm of being, crimson beneath skies of slate, and blue oceans of spent life-rivers, trudging the waterways. Full to bursting, my lungs say, but it's a contented burgeoning, a joy contained that ticks time behind a cage. Beat along, beat alone, beat a tone of silent survival beneath the dingy day. For twilight, well, may steal your breath away.

Life is a broken-winged bird ~ Hughes

Today was Maya Angelou day. As a poet (though I'm not one yet), I appreciate the visceral roots from which her poetry derives. She's fiery, angry, ardent, singing, and screaming loud as a caged bird for the plight of her people and others similarly caged. Other times, she's passionate with the power of love.

the free bird thinks of another breeze / and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

but a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams 

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream 

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing

we grow despite the horror that we feed on our own tomorrow

poignant as rolled eyes, sad as summer parasols in a hurricane

I also read some more cummings. I can understand the countless years of study and practice of poetry. I'm impatient, so I'm reading hundreds, maybe a thousand poems a day (slight embellishment. I think I actually read ~200-300 today at least), and although I rarely linger long on any single one, for analysis or careful dissection, just now, I'm learning what I sought.

Today, I noticed a trend of birdsong in my reading of poetry. Maya Angelou frequently references birdsong as a motif of freedom; cummings in a similar fashion; Wendell Berry often as a naturalistic leaning or as a chord in the agrarian song-life; Walt Whitman and Pablo Neruda and Emily Dickinson all include birdsong in quite a number of their poems as well, from what I recall. Those in the city view it as freedom from it; though in the country as their lot and pride - an exemplar of their chosen life. Sometimes, it is even contrasted with more obnoxious bird calls, such as the crows cawing. 

What to write today?

You cannot drop what's never held. The sleep-silent window mirrors - if the future, it won't tell - but leaves insipid tastes. The past's present, present's past, and heaven's hammer strikes the tolling bell, persistent as the permanence of time. Truly, when gazing into the sun, shadows fall behind. Upon a vitrine, framed to dusty fate, does it still beat? Mornings, when eastern sun streaks through yon window, even abandoned glass shines, reflecting grainy lines, beating light against the wall. Then, scraping open this grumpy display, wiping away the grime of time, you're perched on the mantle now, heart of mine, or under. Pulse with the rhythm of fire. 

The beginning of writing stories is upon me. I'm not sure to what capacity this writing, here, will be accomplished in the coming month. But we'll see. I made a bet with myself, so I shall continue. I always win, and lose, against myself. This will be no different. Back to reading Maya Angelou to close the night. 

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

~ Langston Hughes