If but a kiss were exchanged,
Your lips, like a patient weaver,
Drawing secret life through the warp of my spirits,
Would I not become
Beautiful,
Glow in the benediction of your gift?
Should I not, then, raise a mirror to your affections?
Would I not be tender,
Aspire to crown your beauty with delight?
Most radiant woman,
I too could be beautiful
For others
But more so for you.
Why should I not wish it?
To strive for your pleasure
When offered the same?
Lady, dearest lady,
If you but breathed the words
"You are mine."
How could it not be so?
I am attractive, perhaps:
A poet, a dancer.
I love words and music,
Feeling in art.
I am responsible, solvent,
A talented engineer with a fine analytical mind,
As courteous and considerate, I think, as any a gentlemen,
Educated,
Diverse in interests,
Arguably a Renaissance man.
Would I not be beautiful
For someone?
For you?
There is much I haven't grasped,
Experiences yet unknown to me.
I am not an Alexander or a Caesar.
I've seen too little of the world,
And I'm not one given to displays of machismo.
In conversation, the magic words often elude me;
I tremble and feel like I missed my exit on the freeway.
Sometimes I don't believe in myself when I should.
I'm often not sure how to hold myself, what to say,
What is proper to expect from a situation,
And I suppose it shows at times
But I tell you that I know
That within me
Like a seed nestled in the windswept
Fields of January snow,
Or the chrysalis that must surely become the painted monarch,
The very essence of beauty lies,
Dormant, yet profound and imminent:
Beauty that comes from the love of life,
From sharing of mind and body,
From knowing that there is a purpose to it all,
From the exile of doubt and vain hopes
To their dark place under the sea,
From the recognition that who I am
Is real and something that you may delight in.
You don't know how
Beautiful I could be.
George Chadderdon © 1997