Words to Love By

When we expect nothing

we can be more easily ourselves,

alone or with others.

Adept at containing our thoughts

as the breadth between book covers!

If the condition we’re in

is the result of our successes,

or failings and strivings,

aren’t we equally the result

of all our contrivings?

After all, our lives are 

their own consolations

if all we've to offer

is what the alchemists

call permutations!

Don’t you think its time

joy acknowledged it’s debt to pain,

as suffering encourages joy 

to know itself

before it can attain.

The dark makes light palpable

like paint on blank canvas,

through paint the heart

recreates us while

loving expands us. 

 

Then why not agree 

to call this our blue period?

Rather than thinking woe is me, 

and besides having read

 Homer’s Iliad.

For trials are meant to clarify 

each happiness and joy; 

our sweat and our tears 

moisten the colors

they employ.

Accruing hues both singular

and pleasingly plural

so that what’s begun 

a self portrait ends up 

as a mural.

1/23/22