Happiness is not yours.
A guest in our home,
It arrives warm, bright, generous,
Leaves quietly before its time.
Happiness is not mine.
It lives untamed
In wilderness between our hands
But not in our hands.
A tide between our shores,
Happiness is not yours
To keep, not mine to give.
But it may be shared
As you swim beside me,
The wake trailing your body
Gently joining mine.
What comes each dawn I do not know Dawn knows no reason Keeps its own season Buds at budding time Ripens at harvest time Dies in its prime Leaves one fresh gift To confound the clever painter Blending at their palette.
Peace Keeping
My garden has been my refuge,
but I’ve been away too long.
One evening I found my garden
shot through in crimson, gold, and wildfire.
As the sun pressed lower
I drew water for the birds.
Kneeling under red clumps of currants
I plucked greedy weeds and scattered
fists of mulch over sleeping roots.
Now in shadow I chopped tangled
thorns and nettle, avoiding their fire.
I took up my spade and opened a trench
to guard the perimeter from crabgrass.
Come nightfall I set down my tools,
and in the cool darkness
I lay silent and still
beneath the moon’s soft blanket.
A poem for October, for always.
The old man paused on the bridge
a favorite stop
upstream of the lazy oxbow
where a boy once watched
the milky gold
afternoon light
spill through the alders
into empty space
over still water
its silent weight
filled the air
suspending dragonflies
as they patrolled the cattails
urgently
as if they knew
the lateness of the hour.
By Anya Krugovoy Silver, who died in 2018 after breast cancer diagnosis in 2015 (also the year she gave birth to her child). This poem of courage and insight is typical of Krugovoy’s lyrical poetry and her bittersweet, wise reflections on mortality as she lived with cancer. She said she saw her poems bloom during these years, and her writing helped her live with loss and grief. August, a beautiful poem.
Pain
Your absence is not what you think.
It’s not your chair expecting company
or mail left unopened.
It can be moonlight.
I think of how I find happiness:
I’m walking in a meadow,
sun full on my face.
It comes not because
I miss thorns and nettles.
It comes because
my feet sink into sweet clover
and I smell wild roses before
I spot them spilling
over the split rail fence.
I know you by your presence.
One day
I’ll set your phantom free
but not until
I fill your void with light.
I Could Be Wrong 