A Tale of Two Women

They say beauty
is in the eye of the beholder,
and I suppose they're right. . .
I don't know,
because I'm just
an opinionated old woman. . .

Still,
the most beautiful woman
I've ever known in my life
was a victim of polio,
with a large hump on her back
from a badly curved spine,
but Her SOUL
was a source of amazement to me;
she had such a positive outlook
despite her handicap
that there was a kind of glow
flowing all around her.

I fell in love with her
at first sight;
we dated
for a while,
in secret
for such things
were Forbidden back then
by a narrow minded society,
and to this day
I'm sure
she loved me back,
but one day
her father got a job
far away
so we lost touch.

Years later
I did an internet search,
discovered her obituary
for she'd succumbed
to polio
at the age of 36,
leaving behind a son
and a grieving husband;
I cried for two weeks,
clandestinely visited her grave,
leaving behind a bouquet of flowers
and a bag of gummi bears
(her favorite).

That was a long time ago,
but to this day
my heart remembers her,
and a tear
or two
makes its way down my face
in the middle of the night. . . .

The UGLIEST woman
I've ever known
was a classmate of mine
who had a figure
like a Barbie Doll,
and a grotesque soul,
badly misshapen
by greed,
conceit,
selfishness,
and hatred.

She married
right out of high school,
and last time I heard
was on her third husband,
with half a dozen
freakish children
who take advantage of people
every chance they get.

Still looks
like Barbie,
which gets her by I guess,
but her soul
has grown even more ugly
by the passage of time;
there's a good chance
she'll die alone,
un-mourned
and miserable.

Two women
totally unalike;
Beauty of Soul,
Ugliness of Spirit. . . .

To this day
I think of them both,
smiling
at the lessons
they taught me
without
a classroom!