Joy in the Shadows

How to walk the valley of shadows,

air thick with maladies

and still feel the joy.

I’m far too old to die young

but too young at heart

to ignore the getting up morning,

sunrise on schedule, marmalade sky.

sun in the cantaloupe, a slurp of juice,

the miracle of unburnt toast.

Music of the sphere drowns the dirge.

Glenn Gould on Alexa, hands flying.

Blooms are actual, doom merely an attitude.

Petals over nettles in the bowl.

Seeds triumph over weeds.

What falls feeds the soil. Seeds will sprout.

The weeds of words

limp from the lies they carried,

limp from Valentine's Day verses.

Yet we need to shout our love for this life,

for this breath, this irrational exuberance

particularly now against the miasma

as if our furniture were not just furniture

but the bent wood of artisans

and fabric, woven with devotion.

The random scatter of papers,

remotes and books on the coffee table

is a still-life of exotic flowers to Dutch masters.

The messiness of a lived life, the art of it all.