Pursuit

 Joy is too large to wrap

Anything around,

Mind, Body, universe...

Whereas happy seems to fit

like a coin, a stone, a ladybug,

in the palm

leaving no trace.

Happy comes and goes

while Joy

lingers

imperceptibly, inescapably

Inside.

After chasing

Thing to thing

The cat purrs on my chest-

He cannot get any closer. 

Image credit: me. Photo of SSW, aka Smokey, c. 10/21/2022. 

The Happiness Pursuit

Personally,

I found Joy

frequently 

in fleeting moments

such as when 

the forty finches

fly into the ten-foot-tall

hibiscus 

for a breakfast buffet

of aphid ecstasy, 

platters sparkling and

moist with dawn dew

while the sun undresses

all the buds and

peels back perfect petals

with warm invitation

as in seduction.

Watching my cat

Goose

standing bipedal and erect, 

head cocked and

cackling quite curiously

at the busy borage of birds,

attempting to talk to them.

The finches 

feel no fear

seeming to respect

that we were here

first,

fleeing only when full.

Image credit: Poyt448 Peter Woodard, Hibiscus splendens - flower, a rainforest tree or shrub of eastern Australia taken 11/2005 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Wait lifter

Where I have sometimes
pled with pronounced pain,
head nestled in a pillow,

I find myself
Now
heaving
and overcome-
weeping with joy
at the alignment,

at how far
these things travel
and come back around.

And I levitate
the world-

at least it feels this way

in the middle.



Image of art installation Title: Levitated Mass by artist Michael Heizer at Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The Day

That was the day

the day we won't forget.

Why this day, they may ask.

This was the day that marked a change.

Back in the day, we used to say

Earthquake weather, which means Danger 

or Forgiveness.

You could smell it sometimes, 

the magnanimous brink in the air,

yet the ground remains stoic so we are lucky.

Like the time we lived, when we shouldn't have.

When we fell into the chasm of misery only to fly out 

                                                   with Joy.

That was the day we never went back 

the same way.

It tasted new but felt like always-

                                         even if just briefly. 

Art by George W. Joy [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

"Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks"--Chaucer (c.1343-1400)

Haiku VIII

A cup of JOY spills-

drips over the chalice rim

eternal Spring flows

Image of painting Lilla Cabot Perry (1848-1933), "The cup of knowledge, 1905" [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.