Friday, April 19, 2019

Forgetting the Sky

It's not just that joy is joy
though that would be sufficient
it's that joy makes all the rest of life align
sensibly

therefore
a life not focused on 
putting oneself in the way of joy
is not the right one

regardless of whatever else 
may be right about it.

Noted
there is no forcing it
joy comes on its own schedule
at its own hest
as it will; but

Walking hunched, head down,
brooding on wrongs suffered committed & ahead
is sad in itself but more importantly
it is the way to miss joy
which tends to approach

in that space behind the left shoulder, 
where an affectionate spouse would kiss you in passing,
or where a cat would ride if it were accompanying you
on a dumpster dive; where the fringe of an epaulet
might tickle.

for any and all these things it is required
to let the shoulders ride back
and let the sternum
be prow:

We won't spend much time afloat
said and done,
and forgetting the sky is our first
and worst mistake.

4 comments:

Larry said...

Nice one, a poem which aligns well with my own world-view. BTW, I tried to leave a comment on your previous Patrick O'Brian-inspired poem, but Google was being cranky and wouldn't let me.

Dale said...

Thanks Larry! & sorry about Google's temperamental ways :-(

Lucy said...

Lovely, so, well, joyful!

Funny, the epaulet made me think of Patrick O'Brian, then Larry prompted me to look again at the previous one. Are you on a re-read? He's like a good curry, I think, better second time around!

Nimble said...

Thanks for the poem.
This morning I was watching a petal that had blown off a crabapple tree and was pushed in the breeze. Then my eye was drawn by a robin that appeared just over the blooming tree and I tracked it zooming over my head. It was a happy moment.