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Vardry Spencer

What is Beauty

What is beauty? Is it in the eye of the
beholder or is it nature looking through
our eyes at itself--marveling? Are some
things beautiful and others not? Or is it
our desire to grasp and hold which makes
us blind towards some and pulled towards
others?

Once I met a man of poverty. His shirt
was torn and rumpled and unclean; his
hair a mess and shoes run over at the heel.
They looked at him and laughed. And he
laughed too, knowing in his soul their poverty
but not judging. I gave him what I had and
followed as he led the way to food, to drink.
And in the sounds of his refreshment and
renewal was my thanks.

As we walked no word was spoken, no
tale told. But when he sat beneath the tree
a bird lit on his shoulder, then two, and three.
I looked with eyes fixed in wonder that he
so scorned by people was loved by common
sparrows. For on whom do frightened birds
alight?

There, amidst the splendor of the grass
sat one of beauty, beauty clothed in rags
and unkempt hair with earth for bed and
sun for heat. And no one cared or saw
that he was there, that he was love, that
he was beauty.

So what is beauty then?