“Disposition is what it takes,”
My Daddy said to me.
“It makes a woman beautiful
When she’s as nice as she can be.”
When my parents described someone,
Only virtues they’d recite,
And all their friends were “beautiful”
When pressured to describe.
“Is she pretty?” Dad would ask
When a new friend I would meet,
But what the question really meant:
“Is her disposition sweet?”
Mom called me her pretty girl
When I was kind and good;
“That was ugly!” she’d exclaim
When I didn’t act as I should.
“Natural beauty is the inside kind,
Where you’re good deep in your soul.
It don’t matter what the mirror says
When you’ve got a heart of gold.”
“Mighty pretty girl you’ve got there, Ray.”
The store clerk said, when I was four.
“Remains to be seen,” my Daddy said
As he led me out the door.
copyright © 1999 by moleta ruth mccarter. all rights reserved.
