Where Beauty Breathes Poem by BASAB CHAUDHURI

Beauty asks for a background
the way sound asks for silence -
a mountain leaning into sky,
an ocean held by horizon,
a palace framed by shadow
a painting saved by space.

Grandeur is never alone.
It rises only when
something grave and spacious
stands behind it,
willing to remain unnamed.

So too the beauty of a woman:
not an object, not a keeping,
but a presence that opens
only in air unclaimed.
Freedom is not an adornment -
it is the condition.

To own is to narrow the world.
To own is to still what moves.
Beauty fades where it is held,
and endures where it is free.