*

*

Joy

“Then did I learn how existence could be cherish’d

 Strengthen’d and fed without the aid of joy.”

                                                                                                                            -Emily Bronte, Remembrance

Joy is not where I live

yet this life I hold like a damsel fly,

delicate, light-footed,

whose touch I thank each morning

*

Joy is not what I speak,

but rituals, deeply rooted,

as the stream-fed cottonwood

affirm life’s leafy purpose

*

Joy flies too high to grasp,

caught on an updraft, rising

on dappled, pointed wings

a lightness sought, inspired

*

Joy is a bird rarely seen,

a fleeting lift of heart

while feet mark the dance

of a foreign time-signature