Joy: A 5AM Poem

This morning

I am standing under Wendy,
the willow,
thinking about joy.

Of course I am.

I have made it
part of my life’s work!
Wonderful, ridiculous,
depending on the hour.

The trouble is,
the moment I go looking for it
I step outside my own life.

There is this morning.

And then there is me,
watching myself have the morning.

Isn’t this beautiful?
Am I here enough?
Grateful enough?

Oh for God’s sake.

Wendy isn’t doing any of this.

She just stands here
dropping her long green arms
toward the earth,
never asking
if she is willow enough.

The birds don’t check
if their song is landing.

Even the sun came up fine
without my help.

And still I want to understand it.
Teach it. Write about it.

I want to know how to find it
when I am lonely,
when I am frightened,
when the news is loud enough
to swallow the word whole.

It is TOO MUCH a lot of the time.

This is the part I don’t always say:

I teach joy
because I need it too.

Sometimes I stand beneath Wendy
at five in the morning
with all my years behind me
and however many ahead,

not knowing anything,

just a woman under a tree
wanting to love her life
while she has it.

Maybe that’s the practice.

Not joy.

This.

Feeling my feet on the ground.

Hearing the birds.

Noticing the mind
already wandering off
to improve something.

And coming back.

Again.

The empty chair is here.
The bird is here.
Loneliness is here.
So is the morning.

Nothing has to leave
for something else to enter.

I breathe.

Wendy moves
when the wind moves her.

And for a moment
I stop asking life
to feel any particular way.

I am here.

This is here.

And sometimes,
right in the middle of all of it,

joy arrives!

Love, Jayne