The Beauty in Poverty...Can You See It?

I walk the streets and stop to admire an old fence, painted with the black of age. The lines are beautiful, the color rich, the patina authentic. This is what I see. But I also see the mold and the brokenness. It doesn't really guard much anymore. The home inside is dilapidated and covered in flowers. One might think the beauty here is about the long lost luster of a hacienda once stately. But it isn't. Its about the present. Its about the semi-crazy pruned black man who walks out from the eves and explains that he asked if he could live in the house so thieves would stop stealing the windows and door handles. Its about his intensity, his spoken belief of the importance of preserving the place, and about my knowledge that he really doesn't have any other place to live. That and his fan. Its about his one fan and his one light plugged in with a long extension chord to the house next door, so he can be cool in the heat and eat his supper in the light.