Perfection Part 2

I hear your earnest words
telling me I am perfect,
and though I know you are being generic…
you are speaking of souls,
something universal,
even impersonal…
I feel something more in your protest,
that perhaps you consider me
more valid than I do myself:
this woman of experience and years,
this cracked and flawed vessel I wear.
You see my spirit like I see yours.
I could come to crave that mirror,
one that sees inside me
and tells me hidden truths
I have tended to deny
on the evidence of the ones
that only reflect the surface.
Why is it we can look upon another
in the clearest, most genuine way
and love them for who they are
when we seldom give ourselves the same honor?
The thing we are seeking
has always lay waiting inside us
but maybe it is useful now and then
to have someone show us
that beauty is not skin deep
it comes from something deeper than bones.
What else is love, then
but showing each other how we are
how timeless and whole
how amazing and rare
how perfect.

RCGA, 2010