Grandfather's Face Poem by Sonny Rainshine

You had to look a second or third
time to find the beauty in his face,
but it lay there etched into the lines
like crumpled paper, priceless parchment.

Just as his life had its wrinkles,
meandering rivulets of time and trial,
so his face memorialized them.
It is the roughness that makes the smooth
seem sweet.

It is more than skin deep, beauty.
It radiates into the wise eyes that gazed
upon history and survived it.
It lodges in the warm chambers of
the heart and the kindness
of the mind after it has absorbed
all the joy and the pain
of everyday life.
It is a face well earned
and well worn.