Beauty is exposed but to a few...

I have always been in awe of those who can find a source of beauty in those things that we have already defined as banal or insignificant. Beauty is not created but merely revealed. A unique point of view, like a magnifying glass, unlocks and exposes these sources solely to its possessor. This source of beauty only makes sense to the mind of the beholder, serving as a source of inspiration. It is only in these rare occasions, when the point of view is "tweaked" in an unusual way, that the most spectacular and profound artistic revelations are formed. I truly believe that my favorite poet, Pablo Neruda, possesses this unique gift, as proved in this beautiful poem that follows:

Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market

Among the market greens,
a bullet
from the ocean
depths,
a swimming
projectile,
I saw you,
dead.

All around you
were lettuces,
sea foam
of the earth,
carrots,
grapes,
but
of the ocean
truth,
of the unknown,
of the
unfathomable
shadow, the
depths
of the sea,
the abyss,
only you had survived,
a pitch-black, varnished
witness
to deepest night.

Only you, well-aimed
dark bullet
from the abyss,
mangled
at one tip,
but constantly
reborn,
at anchor in the current,
winged fins
windmilling
in the swift
flight
of
the
marine
shadow,
a mourning arrow,
dart of the sea,
olive, oily fish.
I saw you dead,
a deceased king
of my own ocean,
green
assault, silver
submarine fir,
seed
of seaquakes,
now
only dead remains,
yet
in all the market
yours
was the only
purposeful form
amid
the bewildering rout
of nature;
amid the fragile greens
you were
a solitary ship,
armed
among the vegetables
fin and prow black and oiled,
as if you were still
the vessel of the wind,
the one and only
pure
ocean
machine:
unflawed, navigating
the waters of death.

Pablo Neruda