Author’s note: This a short piece written for the Soaring Twenties Social Club Symposium. Every month a roving band of flâneurs, artists, writers and layabouts create something around a set theme. For May, the theme was beauty, and a chance discussion in the STSC Discord server led to this piece. I guess it would be called a prose poem of sorts.
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I thought I knew beauty then.
I did not.
Not until those tiny eyes opened for the first time, seeing yet not seeing. The sights, sounds, smells, all new. All she knew before was warm darkness and the sound of voices far off. Now the clashing glare of hospital lights give way to long nights struggling to make sense of a new world. Both for her and for me.
I thought I knew beauty then.
I did not.
Not until that first smile, the incoherent giggling laugh that bursts unasked from a face that doesn’t quite understand why it’s smiling. Eyes light up as she sees the ones she loves come into the field of view, tiny hands grasping for more than just a hand. For hope, for comfort, for safety. For joy, both hers and mine.
I thought I knew beauty then.
I did not.
Not until those first tottering steps, the gleeful grin, the hopeful eyes. The proud smile on her face and mine. The tumbling, stumbling steps collapsing into a hug that I wish could last forever. The sleepless nights that felt like they did. The increasing speed of both her movement and the days passing.
I thought I knew beauty then.
I did not.
Not until the first gleeful moo, the cluck, the bark. The wolf’s long howl, the snake’s slow hiss. The stumbling, tumbling words that come so slow at first then never stop. I sometimes wish they would and yet I hope they never will. The cries, both joy and sorrow. The stories, the songs, the bright tomorrow.
I thought I knew beauty then.
I did not.
Not until two new eyes open for the first time. Long slow embraces. The trembling joy with which her sister holds her, and I behold them both. Rediscovering every step all over again. The sameness. The difference. The sleepless nights, the hopeless fights, the endless lights. Everything all over again and yet still new.
I know nothing of beauty.
I never will.
But every day I see a little more.
If God should be willing through many years, through the deepest of joys and certain tears. Beauty in all the days we are given, beauty that shines like glimpses of heaven. Who knows where we’ll go, yet this will be ours:
Beauty, all new with each passing hour.