Ugly? Who says!

In one form or another and from a very young age, we are often told what is beautiful and what is not...it's not intentionally malicious or anything, it just happens for the most part...The Muscovy duck is considered quite ugly by most people...

What do I see?...I see being about 5-6 years old, living on what I was sure was a huge lake ( when in fact it was probably a good sized pond), and with my mother or father beside me, feeding crusts of bread or duck feed to Muscovy ducks just like this one...they were almost as big as I was, but they "wagged" their tails, made murmuring duck sounds and ate the food right out of my hand! Thrilling! Beautiful!

Today, he (the duck) showed up on my dock at a time when looking into my own mirror-real or metaphorical-I questioned and struggled with what I see. Maybe he's reminding me: beautiful.
...eye of the beholder