A Valentine's Day Poem about "Beauty"!
Copyright © 1995 by Odell Sneeden Hathaway III
Happy St. Valentine’s Day!
If someone came to me and asked me to create “Beauty,” I would be lost. For all that I could do is try to make a duplicate of you!
I would try to make this “Beauty” as caring as you are. I would raise it near a stream, where it could go for walks with a cat and could learn humor and love. I would have this “Beauty” rescue the cat in a thunderstorm so it would learn compassion and passion. I would try to duplicate your upbringing, but I would never have the heart to temper this “Beauty” the way your pain has tempered you, or show it the ugliness that you have seen. And so, it would not be able to shine the way you do and could only be a piece for show — not a real living person like you are, and therefore it would not be truly beautiful at all.
Through this education, this “Beauty” would develop a beautiful soul like the one I see radiating from you. Of course, I would connect that soul with the second most beautiful brown eyes in creation (since the most beautiful are yours). I would have to be careful while working with those eyes, for if I were not, the ecstasy I feel while gazing into them would intoxicate me until I was completely lost in them. But would that be so bad?
I would give this “Beauty” the ability to dream — and not just to dream, but the brilliance and intellect to make its dreams come true, just the way I know you have the ability and love to make all of your dreams come true (and I hope some of mine as well).
I would put this “Beauty” into the body of a goddess, with silky brown hair, a smile that could bring light to every dark place in all of God’s creation, and a laugh that could make a person forget that there was ever pain in the world.
The one thing that would be different about this “Beauty” and you would be me. For I would not let my inexperience and past make me afraid to tell it how beautiful it was (for I would know that it knew I meant much more by the word “beauty” than most), or how lovely its hair looked, how nice that outfit looked on it! I would not be afraid to touch it, thinking that it would disappear. I would know that it was not a dream, and so if it would let me, I would be able to hold its hand or give it a hug goodbye at the airport — all these things I want to do with you but am too afraid, for the moment, to do.
Above all, I would love this “Beauty” I had created — just the way that I love you.
Most truly,
Odell
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