March 29, 2022

let gladness be a mantra

you draw to your shoulders as the dentist reaches for the drill. Let a small, giddy flush 
erupt at the sight of the long line for the teller. Feel the sugary wash of joy when you miss
the exit or forget to add baking soda or when you spill coffee on the novel you’ve only
just begun to read. Lavish in the upheavals that keep you from your desk or that walk 
that straightens your resolve or the phone call you keep promising to return. Consider
all the places you still have so much room to move, where the air is absent of the kind
of terror you read about in the headlines. Behold the inkling greening of the moment,
this very one I mean, in which you are not getting everything you want.
Isn’t it marvelous to wish for a thing and envision even the barest grainy lines of it
in front of you? The way you keep sniffing toward the sky, as if it were this close.