When the boy is sneering
or the glass is breaking
or the woman is weeping
or the streets are crowded
with anger and rage,
it is hard to believe
a small joy
has any real value,
hard to believe
a single red gerber daisy
or a cup of grapefruit-scented tea
might have any relevance,
could bear any weight on the scale
that measures what it is to be alive,
but last night, while I was steeping
in worry, aching with injustice,
my daughter created a stage
between the threadbare couches
and hummed herself a soundtrack
as she leapt and spun
and shuffled and flapped,
and oh, how her brief flare of joy
changed the flavor of the night,
an improbable balance,
the way even the smallest amount of sugar
transforms the bitter sauce,
the way just one note
resolves a minor chord,
the way the barest hint of rain
makes the whole desert
erupt into bloom.
Posts Tagged ‘joy’
Strange Balance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged balance, joy, parenting, scale on March 3, 2021| 9 Comments »
Getting Ready
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged advent, bird, hawk, joy, kayleen, wonder on November 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »
What might you need to let go of or “clean out” in order to make room for wonder or joy?
—Kayleen Asbo, Advent and the Arts: The Week of Hope
Just today I walked
in the shadows
and noticed how
they scrubbed me
the way silence sometimes
scrubs a room.
Wonder rushed in.
It wasn’t that I was trying
to keep wonder out,
it’s just that with my schedule
and rigor, I hadn’t left it
space to enter.
If only with mop
and broom I could sweep
out anything
that would keep me
from wonder, from joy.
Instead, the world offers
shadow, stillness,
quietude, loss,
and a red-tailed hawk
in the heart,
circling, circling,
wondering what
it might subtract next.
In a Circle Six Feet Apart in Town Park
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, Heartbeat, joy, music, singing, tears on May 26, 2020| 4 Comments »
Perhaps we stumbled
on the words, perhaps
we forgot a note,
forgot a bridge,
bumbled our entrances,
fumbled our parts,
but we sang, oh yes,
we sang into the low golden light
of summer, sang
because joy, because
harmony, sang because
lonely, because fear,
sang because, tears
spilling down our cheeks,
we could sing, oh friends,
before we said goodbye,
we could sing.
In the Fourth of July Parade
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged example, joy, poem, poetry, unicycle on July 5, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Right down the middle of main street
the woman with the long red braids
and fairy wings strapped to her back
rode a unicycle more than two times
taller than she was—rode it with balance
and grace, her arms stretched out,
as if swimming through gravity,
as if embracing space—her smile an invitation
to join in her bliss. How simple it is, really,
to make of ourselves a gate. To swing open
to the joy that is. To give others the key.
One Art
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, joy, poem, poetry, room on December 16, 2018| 2 Comments »
for Sherry
in a time of thorns
finding the smallest joy—
making a room in it
big enough
we can all slip in
Dear __________,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, conspiracy, joy, peace, poem, poetry, unity on October 18, 2018| 4 Comments »
You are warmly invited to join our conspiracy of joy,
a growing cabal of strangers and friends who collude
to create delight, who initiate random acts of bliss, who
scheme of ways to help all others find authentic jubilance,
who tear down walls that would separate us and them.
If you enjoy such subterfuge, there certainly is room
for you. To be clear, you may be charged with pleasure,
ecstasy, and truth. Next meeting, now. And now. And now
Poem Not About Fruit Flies
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fruit flies, joy, poem, poetry on September 14, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Once there’s one, you know
that there are hundreds to follow
hiding in and amongst everything,
next to impossible to eradicate—
some things seem to come
in great abundance.
May joy be one.
Odd Joy in Paradox Valley
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Bedrock, joy, poem, poetry, song on March 15, 2017| 2 Comments »
Driving through Bedrock,
population 14, I remember
sitting on the stoop of the general store
and asking Rose to come out from behind the counter
and sing me a song about sorrow.
Crazy how a sad song could make me
so happy. Crazy how every time I drive by
I still smile to think of her voice,
soaring as the red rock cliffs,
haunting as the windows shuttered and dark.
With the Sound of Birds in the Trees
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged joy, poem, poetry, sunshine on January 29, 2017| Leave a Comment »
One minute you’re sitting on the porch
in the warm morning sun and ten minutes later
it’s been an hour or more and you have forgotten
your name, forgotten the year, forgotten
who’s president, all that you know is the sky
has never been so clear and your body
has never been this starved for blue—the way
it steeps so deeply into you that by the time
you enter yourself again, you forget to wonder
how to make this radiance last,
can’t imagine you could ever feel
any other way.
Window
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, joy, poem, poetry, wushdan on January 24, 2017| 5 Comments »
In dark times it is sometimes hard
to speak of joy—not because
it doesn’t exist but because
of the guilt in feeling it.
The dark clots our arteries,
it keens in our ears, floods the streets.
Still, my friend sends me a word—
wushdan. It’s pronounced like swush,
she says, not swoosh. Wushdan.
I say it aloud, and the syllables
hush my tongue. It means,
she says, “heart awareness,
conscience,” as in a practice
of inner discipline. Wushdan,
I say again, as if to speak a word
is to know the secrets harboring
inside it for centuries.
The root, says my friend, is wush,
which is Persian, means joy.
It feels as if someone
has slipped me a piece of chocolate
in math class during a test.
Or as if, while reading
the headlines of war I look out
the window and see the big brown eyes
of a doe looking unwaveringly
into mine. And I put the paper down
and watch out the window
until the light is gone.