It can be so small, what saves me.
Like the crow that arrives every day
in the same green spot in the yard.
Like the baby bunny that lives
beneath our porch who locks eyes
with me every morning.
Like skinny dipping with Corinne
in a frigid alpine lake. Bite of radish
just picked from the garden.
Scent of wild roses on the trail.
It does not make sense that pleasures
so small could somehow stand up
to a ransacked heart, and yet
when I hear the whir of hummingbird wings
or see the tiny purple of a Lady Slipper
rising out of the dirt,
I notice the dogged joy in me,
how it glimmers against the dark
like the shooting star I saw tonight,
long and brilliant and red,
or like the owl in the spruce trees
that with only a handful
of low and sonorous notes,
redefines the night with song.
Posts Tagged ‘joy’
Small Stuff
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged joy, nature, small things on June 21, 2022| 8 Comments »
Contact Joy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged joy, marriage, skiing, work on April 1, 2022| 10 Comments »
He cleans the base of the skis
with a fine, steel brush to remove
the old wax, his body swaying
above the ski, tip to tail, tip to tail,
so the micro hairs on the base
will lay down in the direction of travel
on snow. A fine copper brush
cleans it more. His movements
are quick, precise, a dance
that now comes naturally.
The only music is the sound
of the brushes, the sound
of his breath. There is no
laughter, no joking,
not even a smile, but
sometimes on winter nights
I walk toward the light
in the garage and watch
his body intent on its work,
and I feel the quiet joy
he finds in preparation
and the work of foundation,
and his joy seeps into me,
soft as the darkness
that holds the garage,
deep as the space
that holds us all.
For When People Ask
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged feelings, grief, joy, paradox, singing on March 13, 2022| 17 Comments »
I want a word that means
okay and not okay,
a word that means
devastated and stunned with joy.
I want the word that says
I feel it all all at once.
The heart is not like a songbird
singing only one note at a time,
more like a Tuvan throat singer
able to sing both a drone
and simultaneously
two or three harmonics high above it—
a sound, the Tuvans say,
that gives the impression
of wind swirling among rocks.
The heart understands the swirl,
how the churning of opposite feelings
weaves through us like an insistent breeze
leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,
blesses us with paradox
so we might walk more openly
into this world so rife with devastation,
this world so ripe with joy.
*
by the way, friends, if you are aware of a word in another language that means okay/not okay, gosh, I would love to know it
Pickling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged canning, food, joy, kitchen on August 8, 2021| 4 Comments »
For hours we stand in the kitchen
and slice cucumbers, peel garlic,
prepare the brine. There is joy
in preserving what is wonderful,
in letting the self believe in a future
when we will pull the jar from the shelf
and remember what it was like
this summer day—as if we could also
fit into the jar the laughter, the pink
of the zinnias up to our waist,
the chickadee song and the warm,
warm nights. To be present
does not mean to ignore the future—
but oh, as we prepare, such joy
in singing along to an old favorite song
on the radio, scent of dill in the air,
summer still unfolding in the yard,
in the jars, in our joy.
Latent
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bike, joy on July 8, 2021| 3 Comments »
Riding our bikes through the warm summer night,
the dark itself parted to let us pass;
wind in our hair, soft whir of the wheels—
and an almost irrational joy grew in me then,
such simple joy, as if joy were always here,
waiting to flourish, needing only to be noticed.
And is joy latent in everything?
I have felt it sometimes in the washing
of dishes, in mowing the lawn,
in peeling the carrots, even washing
the fishtank and scrubbing the floor.
So could it be, too, inside worried pacing?
In envy? In sighing? In the clenching of fists?
Is there joy where I can’t imagine it?
Joy—waiting to spin like a wheel,
waiting to rise like laughter
that careens through the deepening dark.
Strange Balance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged balance, joy, parenting, scale on March 3, 2021| 12 Comments »
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.
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