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
Posts Tagged ‘joy’
For When People Ask
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged feelings, grief, joy, paradox, singing on March 13, 2022| 23 Comments »
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| 4 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
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.
One More Step
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged joy, poem, poetry, running on September 10, 2016| Leave a Comment »
One Saturation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged joy, poem, poetry, present on May 22, 2016| 1 Comment »
Four Surprise Joys
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged joy, poem, poetry on March 12, 2016| 2 Comments »
steep, this trail—
one more reason to pause often
and notice how beautiful
*
the same rich tea—
drinking it from different cups
together
*
without looking
I find you—
unexpected sun
*
sunset so pink
the mind undoes another button—
the whole world blushes
The Short List
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged joy, poem, poetry on February 8, 2015| 4 Comments »
It can be so simple,
what gives us joy.
The trace of green
in winter grass.
The scent of ginger.
A slip of a forgotten song
that returns to the lips.
A lemon cookie
sweet and tart.
And another one, too.
The feeling that
there are a million million
small sources of joy,
and the day, though
it’s finite, is not
yet over.
Walking on the River Ice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ice, joy, love, poem, poetry, silence on January 21, 2013| 3 Comments »
I love this place beneath the cliff.
The sun does not shine here all winter.
The water flows and the water
stops itself in the cold and the water
finds a new way. I remember
how quiet it was when I told you
what you did not want to hear.
Perhaps the clock kept keeping time
but the moon stopped.
I think of how much has changed
since then. And how much
life is the same. The silence
here is beautifully made. It is more than
the small sound of the moving
river. It is more than memory.
Suffering is not the only truth.
There is joy. There is grace.
There is peace.
Millennium Park, Chicago
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged boy, chicago, joy, laughter, poem, poetry, puddle, running, son on August 17, 2012| 3 Comments »
In the heart of the city
the boy runs,
he leaps and arrives
in every puddle
until he is drenched,
dazzlingly wet.
His laugh is the laugh
we forget is always here
waiting to be laughed
come sun, come rain.
Featherless but Flying Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged contentment, darkness, haiku, joy, poem, poetry, singing on March 17, 2012| 3 Comments »
I guess I’d make
a crummy bird … here I am
singing in the darkness.