In the last few years, objective circumstances have not been particularly joyful, and yet joy breaks through regardless. That is because joy has nothing to do with circumstance.
Looking at Light
All my earliest memories are of trauma, a bare foot
on a lit cigar, whacking my forehead on a stucco wall.
No surprise, pain carves deep so the body might survive.
Clear cause, clear effect, lesson learned. But not so
with joy, which arises when it will, unprompted except
by the look in a beloved eye, by late light on the bay, by
a far hillside in peak fall color, an old song on the radio.
It hides in the everyday world, awaiting one’s awakening.
It comes not from the outside, rather from within.
It arises from attention, from opening to this moment,
letting grievance go, and obsession. Look at that light
where tiny motes of dust are dancing. Just beautiful.
Note: unpublished draft
