Simple Tricks and Nonsense

Hey, remember a while back when I expounded on my experience of wearing a beard? No? Well, that's okay, because I'll just remind you of the salient bit, which is the little poem by George Carlin that I ended the entry with:

Here's my beard.
Ain't it wierd?
Don't be sceered,
It's just a beard.

Andrew Sullivan, a fellow bearded man, posted another poem today that makes essentially the same point, but a little more elegantly:

Abundant hair hangs over my fierce face
and shoulders, shading me, just like a grove;
but don't think me unsightly just because
I am completely covered in dense bristles:
unsightly is the tree that has no leaves,
the horse without a mane; birds have their plumage
and sheep are most attractive in their wool,
so facial hair and a full body beard
are really most becoming in a man.

--Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XIII (trans. Charles Martin)

Go, Ovid!