HAPPY ENDINGS

 

 The rain has slowed and birds sing their pleasure,

Though it's dusk and rest is near.  

Nesting where I know not.  

They awake before I, already in song.

All day we hoped for the sweetness of moisture to plump us.

We, the flowers and moss, 

The gardeners and walkers and outdoor watchers. 

We longed for fresh greenness and now it is here.

Thunder faint as the train rumbles slowly

Though the train is not far, just past the tall pines.

Rolling, calling, beckoning: sounds that embrace.

They teach us how to gleam with the rain.

The sash pushed high I remember from youth,

Tilting my head for the spray,

Eyes shut and happy.

A bit of cool on a newly warm day, just May.

My notebook is open, my candle now lit to welcome the night.

It comes early on evenings like this.

(Or the clouds might part for the late-day sun.

--But not today.)  The earth faces into the mist.

My pots of geranium:  apricot, violet.

Begonias so pale after winter indoors,

Brighten and flush their leaves to colors 

Unseen since the frost long ago.

 

Windows wide as I write--

As I sit and dream, really,

The writing an after-thought, reason to pause.

Enjoying the damp on my arm near the casement.

My candle is Balsam Fir; seasons combine.

Can I make life a poem?

Can I wash grief and fear, thought and memory

Tender as rain this day does the leaves?

 

I almost can.  I almost keep the old (or new) at bay. 

The inexplicable human (needless) failings.

I almost look around and see no sign of any single thing unkind. 

The only reason there aren't happy endings is that nothing ever ends. 

by nina naomi