Winter is coming, here. Sixteen green/yellow leaves left on the crab apple, none on the birch, handfuls of orange flame on the cherry. The pale golden sun is just rising above the forest tree-line fifty metres away, dew not yet transformed into mist but hanging silver and dark from buds and tips and blades. Then comes a moment as the sun lifts clear and the light is clear and direct, the dew becomes white light, spider webs shimmer and sparkle and drops, quivering in the slightest breeze, flash through spectra of rainbow clarity, blue fire, orange flash, green spark.
I still the rocking of the chair, place the tea mug to my lips and watch the light play, thirty seconds, a minute, more, the mug is drained and the sun has warmth enough that the moisture rises as faint mist, black white and rainbow is now a soft yellow glow, diffuse swirls of texture in which lemon sparkles of rousing insect, wing dip and fall amongst the highest branch tips.
This is beauty. I know it, I feel it, respond to it, a little. I am able to take the time, to be detached, to observe. I am fortunate I know, to have that grace of time and place and the wit and will to experience such ephemera - not just as fact or event but in a higher spirit where I can know the beauty. Know it, recognise but not describe it. I cannot describe beauty. You may see it as I shape words into patterns, as I re-create a scene or portray a situation, but you not I put the beauty into it.
Beauty, a quality or characteristic of something that gives pleasure. Why do you understand that? What do we share? A curiosity, as of a monkey toward the shine, that stands out, that is different? Is there a reward in nature for that attraction to brightness; the heart of a nectar'd flower, the light of a star in the dark night, the comfort of fire, sparks and embers? And that is attraction, not pleasure.
I cannot hold, nor can you, that morning moment in which the dew drops and spider webs lit up the winter-ready tree more and better than any artificial drapery of jewels or lights. So why is it beauty?
Lust for the pretty would not light my heart for such a moment; owning the slow-time crystal light of a diamond would not please me more. Beauty, because of a simple thing, the passing of a moment that may not be owned, just experienced. Ephemeral, transient, shining, as are we.