The Eyes of the Beholder

I was lying across the dam path when a woman stepped over me and said, "Hi!  What are you looking at?"  I pointed.  "Beautiful," she said and moved on with her small dog.

 At the metal bridge, I stopped to admire the lilies, blooming today for the first time this spring, and the turtle sunning himself on a branch.  The football team passed and two stopped on the bridge to take cell phone photos.  One said, "Beautiful, isn't it?" and I smiled.

Further on, a sister and brother (high school English teacher and grammar school art teacher), asked, "What are you photographing?"  "That, I said," and pointed out a Violent Dancer, the damselfly species that has recently started to emerge.  "Oh, beautiful," they said, and we had a long conversation about teaching and Sewanee and a mutual former student.

So many eyes, so many beholders, and so much beauty.