Faces emerge in the steam.
I have been trying to pick out a pattern.

Trying to decide what is most crucial
To our pleasure in the experience of beauty–
The whole structure, or the details?
There are some things that are so beautiful
You can’t remove your gaze from them,
Like an equation you can’t solve.

I have never been much of a mathematician–
So I have always looked too long. 

My awe was great and intimate.
Yet again, in my drab gray room,
Old water stains on the walls,
My feeling of being alive in no way diminished,
I can’t help but think that beautiful means

Nothing. Not as long as
That white van is parked on the corner. 

Tracy Byrnes on Flikr