Cover and Words
Poem #284 • The fear of loveliness
What are words on a page? In the case of the perception of the female form, perhaps they are the precursor to spoken word, images in magazines, the weight of fabrications of social movements in scrolling streams.
Beauty is rampant in this world, but it’s also been rampantly stripped bare, not just by male gaze, profit, and lust, but women too. The oldest profession has new life in the information age where destructive attention is a fashionable currency. Conservation may dictate to cover up lest you inspire one to sin, while broadmindedness claims to simultaneously allow behavioral freedom while leaving people with no compass nor line. A whore or a prude is what so many people see as their choices. The fear of loveliness equating every action behind the shell as being on the precipice of sin. Everything on the outside the enemy of self-worth, how does one find a way between the rejection of it all or trading it in for cash?
Modesty! Some people may say, but what is it? If the hidden person of the heart is full of gentle and quiet spirit, can’t the creation of clay within which we are meant to be nascent and bloom express something about what is inside, our maker, and who we are meant to be? If we are the potter and He is the clay, can’t we declare “Formed from the dust of the ground, to our nostrils we received the breath of life. All are from dust, to dust all return.”
To reach to the heavens and honor God in heart, soul, and strength. There is a time and a season for the cover of the book to be seen. It’s not everything and everywhere in every circumstance. It’s meant to illustrate a piece of the story and glory of God and us across all and in our time.
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For more of Grant Hope, you can find books, audio visual poetry, and his “Poetry Respite” newsletter at his website: granthopestudios.com
A deeply reflective and thought-provoking piece beautifully exploring the balance between beauty, identity, modesty, and spiritual purpose with honesty and grace.
This gave me a lot to think about. I like how you challenge the idea that the only options are rejection of beauty or exploitation of it. The tension between modesty, self-expression, and spiritual identity is complex, and I thought you explored it in a thoughtful way.