Joy arrives in the smallest corners
without a script to find it.
Think a bird tilting its head to you in curiosity,
a cat curled up in your pine straw, allowing you close,
a deer pausing mid-munch to size you up
before bounding its fluff tail bum deeper into the woods.
Agenda toward joy can look alright to start with
but it soon becomes a grocery store cake in the mouth,
leaving you wondering how to spit it out with grace.
Grasping at joy is revolting, a fake laugh, an insinuation,
a glomping on – vicarious to the actual fleeting glimpses
we are gifted without neediness.
Don’t grab the kitty by the tail,
try not to join in when you haven’t heard the joke,
allow your own joy to arrive outside the attainment of others,
without needing to announce it to the imagined view of the world.
The original intention that you came here with
is still flickering – and it will not go out until you are gone,
even if you are in jail, or cast out, or inebriated
on the most common drugs of: figuring things out,
escaping your pain, making yourself important,
making yourself small, just
getting through the day, busy, busy, busy…
you know them all.
Even here, joy still visits, and fans your fractal candle.
Thank God, it is one of those trick candles, so blow away,
test it out; it will be here as long as you – waiting to light you
from within – and your inferno will be all your own.
My bonfire on a distant hill
connects the dots toward yours,
making the view overhead of all these fires a truer map
of who is down here,
remembering joy,
no matter where.
Life as Improv 
Yes. Like opening my eyes at 5am in bed this morning and seeing the Southern Cross winking at me in the black sky.
Out of this World! xx
What a lovely piece of joy this is! I must read it aloud to Don. Quite often these days I suddenly feel filled with love, or joy, for no reason. There is nothing to match it. And if I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable sometimes I remember to inquire of myself whether or not joy is already here. It usually is.
Much love, Alison
It is so precious to me that I have been aware of your shiny heads for such a long while now. Your presence and support along the way is more tangible to me than those I can seemingly reach out and touch. I know of the joy you touch so often through your sharing! xx! marga
xox ❤
Utterly delicious, M! And sprinkled with lines that gave me that “Aha” feeling of confronting the known anew. I’m feeling humbled to have been pried open once again by these shared sentiments. These words ripple with joy… They are contagious.
With Love
Michael
Michael,
It is the same sensation that draws me to your words; you have so many “aha’s” that connect the subtlest of my own perceptions to a realization of how much we share with the wonderful twist of seeing it through your fresh words – I think these are the heart tingles I live for. You inspire me to take in the contagion and pass it on! Much love, Marga
This is brilliant writing, and so well felt.
Thank you, Ka. So nice to see you here!
Oh my this is a glorious post! The cake, the flickering, and connecting our dots! I’m shining my light out toward yours tonight and always.
I see your bonfire, KK! warms me from here! xx