This poem of mine, published in the Fall 1988 issue of Kentucky Poetry Review, is my wifes favorite. I wrote it while teaching at Brenau Academy and it captures what it means to be the one who knows that there is a diamond hidden under an often rough and hurting self. There are many of us who need to feel that dazzle, even for a moment. Enjoy, all you little swans who were ugly ducklings! Useful Lies for Cinderella You could say the change Was like coal under pressure or Children on their own in a new place. This beauty, erect and gliding, this Diamond, came out of nowhere: the deepest Unmapped caves of the moon. The moving dazzle is real, The play of lights through a circus mirror: The ugly suddenly charming; the white swan On a blackened pond. Tell the crowd, who Believe in miracles, that here is woman At her best: a whisper of bells, a sigh Of curves, naked in the bridal bed. You could tell your sisters And the boys who saw you only once That the glass surrounding your feet Was always there. What they could not see, With their raven hearts, was the palace In your eyes, the promises underneath the ashes When you knelt. Tell them you saw, every day As you scraped the dirt from their clumsy shoes, A girl looking back, of gold, and looking like the sun.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 22:19:45 +0000