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# Beholder
- URL: https://the-stardust-journal-press.ghost.io/beholder/
- Published: 2024-12-15T15:25:26.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-01T16:51:14.000Z
- Author: Daniel Rutberg
- Tags: poetry, beauty, eye, lens, lover, vision, #Migrated-1782924600586, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-07-01 12:50

Behold the beauty of the dawn,  
as the blood red orb ascends,  
spreading warmth across the crest of the eastern sea,  
casting off its dark blanket,  
rising slowly into the once black,  
now blue-tinted sky.

It is in the beholding,  
not merely in the light,  
where beauty stirs and sings.  
For the waves that lap upon the shore,  
silver-tipped and glinting in morning’s embrace,  
were always there—  
yet unnoticed until we paused,  
breathed,  
and cherished our first sight.

The gnarled oak,  
its branches like ancient veins tracing the heavens,  
stands weathered, scarred,  
yet alive with grace.  
Beauty in the persistence,  
Beauty in it's reaching.

Gazing deep into the eyes of my lover—  
laughter etched into crow’s feet,  
tears cradled by her soft lashes—  
held galaxies of their own.

What do we see when we truly see?  
Not perfection, but life’s symmetry.

The secret is not the lens  
but in learning to hold beauty lightly,  
like cupped hands cradling water—  
precious, fleeting,  
reflecting the world as it is,  
not as we wish it to be.