Beauty in the Dull

In third grade, I didn’t see what everyone else saw–

A number inside a sphere of polka-dots.

It’s a pretty picture, I told her.

It is, she repeated.

And ever since, I suppose, I’ve tried to 

See beauty in the dull–  

The lake holding glistening lights and shadows,

The discarded skin of a clementine sitting on a desk,

My neighbor’s front yard. 

(Granted, not the flower beds, where  

Color bursts out of soily deposits in the ground and 

Cup the outside of houses like 

Mascara around an eyelid, 

But more the trees that cover them and me in shadows

Darker than moss.

There’s one I love especially.  He hunches over as if 

Torqued by an aging spine, but there’s a softness to his shape.  

Ruggedness has been wiped away by age and 

Re-molded into compassion,

Kindness,

Acceptance.  

He doesn’t hunch over me, then, but

Stands curled, preparing for an embrace, stretching out with 

Open limbs.  He could hold me, 

And I would let him.  

The world could rain down upon me, 

Flooding away color like garments tossed in a hot wash, 

And I would stay dry.)

It’s a pretty picture.

It is.