February 25: Eve, Beauty Anywhere, Cold Medicine

Next to the golden boots were a pair of feet which were swaddled in rags.  They were crisscrossed by canvas straps, were shod with hinged wooden clogs.  Billy looked up at the face that went with the clogs.  It was the face of a blond angel, of a fifteen-year-old boy.

The boy was as beautiful as Eve.

I don't have a whole lot of time to get deep this morning.  The fifteen-year-old boy is another image of innocence.  That the innocence is attached to a Nazi youth is a little troubling.  The blond angel may not be an angel, but Billy, unstuck in time, inexperienced at war, is grasping at any possibility of kindness and beauty.

It is going to be a busy day.  As I said last night, there's a wrestling tournament, a dance rehearsal, and a church service.  Some time in there, I need to work on a new poem and figure out what I'm going to read at Tuesday night's poetry reading, all the while hopped up on cold medicine.

There's always the possibility of finding beauty anywhere you go.  There's snow coming down hard right now.  There are pancakes in front of me.  I'm on the front page of the local newspaper for being the new Poet Laureate of Upper Peninsula.  Despite feeling like I've been run through a wood chipper, I think today is going to be pretty good.

Saint Marty is thankful today for kids who pass along illnesses.  Not.