Beauty

Their beauty was still there,
but it was beauty in the broad sense,
the general sense,
the way a forest is beautiful,
or a field of waving grass is beautiful,
whereas any single tree or stalk,
on closer inspection, might be flawed.
-- Michael Blumlein, "The Roberts"
(Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 2008)

Sing

"Why do beautiful songs make you sad?"
"Because they aren't true."
"Never?"
"Nothing is beautiful and true."
-- Jonathan Safran Foer, "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"