Unfading Beauty

What was it Father Henrich read
about unfading beauty at Mass?
Unfading beauty comes from
a gentle and quiet spirit.

How gentle can
a fence climbing,
mud stomping tomboy be?

Or how quiet can
a girl with a lot to say be?

Maybe it’s different than that.
Maybe gentle is like a babbling brook
whose calm waters shape the land slowly,
but it also has the power to become
raging rapids.

Maybe quiet is like the sunrise,
the sun’s light paints the sky
and brightens the world
while it stays tucked below the horizon,
not drawing attention to itself.

Maybe unfading beauty
is something like that.

This one was a hard one to let go. I found a way to connect the character’s faith to her internal story line. But when I researched the King James Version of 1 Peter 3:3-4, it did not include these precious lines about unfading beauty which was what I needed most. Unfading beauty is used in the New International Version, but since this story takes place in 1955, the character would have heard the King James Version which uses the phrase: the hidden man of the heart. That’s the point the scripture was trying to make, but doesn’t help my plot. So it had to go.