What is Beauty?

what is beauty?
she asked once,
a demure bud
imagining herself
to be a flower
she was not,
touching her tender folds,
too scared to open
in the harsh light
of a blazing sun,
and so she held her pleats
twirling at night
under the shadows
of stars,
her breath lighting up
dancing fireflies, and
blowing dreamy moths
into the feverish white.
beauty was, what was not.

what is beauty?
she asked,
a blot of red
amidst splashes of green
and a ring of thorns,
her singed petals
awash with drops of dew,
crumpled, tousled,
by the fickle wind,
yet standing alone
in her red fullness,
between becoming
and dying,
her blood-stained form
fragrant, resilient,
as she rose,
a single rose,
with her thorns.