A TREE BY THE SEA

Woman walking by in a cotton summer dress, where is your beauty? Who are you here to impress? Color your lips and paint your eyes, flutter your lids like butterflies. Smile and sing, laugh and dance. The air is thick with the promise of romance. I’ve watched you there reclined in your chair reaching up briefly to brush back perfectly curled hair. Your nails are bright and smooth as your fingers begin to move, strumming a well-tuned guitar. I can feel your yearning as I sit here at the bar watching you sing out your heart. You long to be seen, you long to be loved, so let me tell you pretty lady in the spotted summer dress I’ve found your beauty in something I think you may have missed. It wasn’t in the sweetness of your voice as you sang a sad love song, or in the applause of an approving crowd who would soon be gone. It was never in the smile that soothed a child’s frayed nerves, or even in the gentle caress of your concern. But let me tell you something that you haven’t realized. I see how you love to watch the butterflies. You are captivated by the colors in their patterned wings. You imagine they carry you messages of hope and heavenly offerings. You imagine that you are weightless and free, being carried toward the sun on the summer breeze.

So, my little butterfly. Your wings sparkle and shimmer only tell me why, is there sadness in your beauty? You’re the glimmer in my eye. Please lovely girl as you flutter by whisper to me your sad secrets. Tell me all you lost and all you hoped to gain. Share with me your deepest sorrows, show me the wholeness of your pain. Pretty little sister your wings dance in the light. You are a song of joy that fills me with delight. I stare at you for hours as you weave between the flowers. Drink sweet daughter until the ache inside subsides. I’ve listened as you poured out your heart. I’ve heard your every cry. Believe me when I tell you my precious butterfly that I weep when you weep. Your grief is my grief. You see lovely one, I know all you have done, and all that’s been done, so come rest your tired wings. I know there are things you wanted to say but never said. Don’t worry about the doubts clouding your head.

You see, your true beauty is in my longing for us just to be. To watch you, hear you, touch you as you turn your heart toward me. There is a song only you can sing. There is a praise only you can bring. I created you to come in perfect harmony. Your choice to love me is the only beauty that you need. Like the intricate design in a butterfly’s wings, your beauty is effortless when you give your love to me. So, darling though you are decorated in an outward beauty any fool could recognize, it’s the constance in your love for me that still gives me butterflies.