Heart Notes

 

This is what beauty looks like:
not magazine beauty, but inner glow,
truth shining out of bright eyes,
kind smiles. Beauty begins
from the inside out, and rarely
looks like a supermodel.

Beauty is the strength one gains
by living one's allotted years;
it encompasses joy and pain,
love and many losses. It doesn't 
count the cost. It is revealed,
not in the falling, but in the rising,
as you rise and rise and rise again.

Beauty lies in the laugh lines
around your eyes; it is heard
in your cackle, seen in
your ready smile, your hand held out,
your "how can I help?"
It is a thing, not of countenance,
but of character. 

It is hard-won. You know you have it
when you can make your tea
on a ridiculously lonely afternoon,
and still have a song in your heart.

Inspired by "Beneath the Sweater and the Skin" by Jeanette Encinias / Wild Writing with Laurie Wagner. The italicized lines are Jeanette's.