2014 – 8th Grade National 3rd Place Winner

Maria Heuring, Minnesota.

Truth and Beauty
It’s an everlasting question
With no answer simply right
Which is greater – truth or beauty?
Which is salvation from our plight?

Let me take you to a time
When the human race was new
When no one knew of beauty
When no one knew what was true

Let me compare it to today
Let me silence all your cries
If we just focus on the past
We’ll see where our future lies

The first humans needed survival
Truth and justice never mattered
They didn’t bother to dwell on beauty
For all their garments were tattered

Yet soon they all adapted
And formed great civilizations
Once they knew how to survive
They began mastering imagination

If you read the book of Plato
(even if not the whole way through)
You’ll find the standards of beauty
More concrete than standards of true

So humans had envisioned
The laws of beauty first
But that doesn’t solve the problem
Of which is better or worse.

Let’s fast forward to today
To examine the state of our nations
May we find an answer
To aid our newest generations

Some find beauty in body
Make-up, color, cleavage and hair
Some find beauty in life
The dance of raindrops in crisp air

Some find beauty in clothes
In money, jewelry and gold
Some find beauty in the arts
A power that never grows old

Some find truth in numbers
In figures, statistics and facts
Some find truth in laws
In government, rules, and tax

Some find truth in people
In hearing what others believe
And some find truth in beauty
Whatever that thing may be

So that brings us back to the question
Which is greater in our society?
Now fewer people know of the wise-
They’re in awe of the Kardashian variety

Yet beauty is deceiving
Truth, though ugly, is always just
In the end you’d hope we’ll listen
To those whose truth is bigger, not whose bust

In the end, I hope truth is greater
I’ve seen beauty wither and die
And what rises from its ashes
Is justice that opens eyes

Let’s make truth greater than beauty
You can go on and disagree
But it is written in ancient past
That the truth will set us free

 

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