beauty is...

Tossed into the pile of things at a sale.
Given for free for I laughed when I saw it.
Its picture the image of my home as it once was.

It's just an old cracked cup.
Doesn't even have its handle any more.
But even in, or maybe because of, its brokeness
I see what its beauty is.

I hold it in the palm of my hand, warmed by the sunlight streaming upon it.
I close my eyes as it rests there and I wonder.

Who held this cup?
Filled it up to offer another?
Taken out onto her back step to watch the morning sunrise over the hill thinking upon the work to be done?
Or on the front porch to sit and relax and watch that same sun set at the end of another hard-working day?

For this place, this life is work.
Endless work.

But there is beauty.


Sometimes it's easy to glimpse what beauty is
gazing across the valley,
or across the pond.
There's a flower,
a bird,
a smiling child,
the words on a page of a book as dear as a friend that bring a smile,
spreading beauty.

Sometimes it's hard to glimpse what beauty is
amongst the loneliness,
the isolation
of this remote valley
filled with people
amongst whom I just
don't
seem to fit.

So I plant another flower,
call to my chickens,
smile at my child,
or pour my own words
onto paper
onto screen
hoping I can spread beauty
so another may see
what beauty is.



~~~~

Joining in the April Prompts at ALM Writes.