Ugliness
The slime we smear across features
Different than our own.
Denying beauty
In the face
Of truth and varying tastes.
Proclaiming permanence
On changeable humanity.
We say beauty
Is skin deep
But it is always there
To be discovered
In the unlikeliest of candidates
Despite wrinkles
Tears and cares
Despite age
Shape and size
Despite scars
Death and years.
Beauty changes
Like nature with its seasons
Every year a different cloak
Hide-and-seek among light and shadow.
But beauty is strong
If we dare face it
And see it as it lies
In the heart and in the features
Of those we least suspect.
Copyright 2016 Andrea Lundgren
Photo by rollingroscoe, Creative Commons
Andrea Lundgren 
I like this. I read it as saying nothing is actually ugly (sadly, with a moment to think I don’t believe in that statement–haha).
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Interesting post. I had to stop and think…I read Cinderella years before any movies. What you are doing with David and Michael is wise. But when kids are brought up with a sense of right and wrong. they translate pretty well. As a child, I realize now that, instinctively, I thought those two women had “ugly” souls. Might have been part of my Catholic schooling….but I knew those two had some real problems. Definitely a jealous pair. Later, much later, Gene Tierney (movie star) would play a killer, a utterly heartless, wicked woman in “Leave Her to Heaven”.And yet so very beautiful. Goes along with a saying when I was a child….”Appearances can be deceiving.” A person’s character, I was taught, was everything. Mother Theresa saw the beauty of those dying, poverty-stricken souls in India. In the Catholic church, there was much emphasis on the value of a single soul. I guess someone needed to pray for Cinderella’s family.! 🙂
With your instruction about how life really works, my great grandsons are going to do very well indeed.
Andrea Lundgren posted: “Ugliness The slime we smear across features Different than our own. Denying beauty In the face Of truth and varying tastes. Proclaiming permanence On changeable humanity. We say beauty Is skin deep But it is always there “
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I think we are probably a great deal more self-conscious than earlier generations; more aware of how we look and compare because our culture promotes such things rather than a focus on what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, of getting through and getting on with life. 🙂
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Just lovely, Andrea. And moving.
Beauty takes on so many forms, least important of all, in my opinion, the transient beauty much venerated in our society.
Well done.
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Thank you!
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