Standing In a Happy Place

 

A person wants to stand in a happy place in a poem*.
Confined to bed and wheelchair, age fifty,
felled by stroke, he says it is inconceivable
to have such happiness as was in the poem I shared,
and yet I do – because of sky and trees and birds
and the endless waves, with their forever in and out.

And because my legs, while painful, still hold me up.
His situation lends perspective to minor complaints.
I tell him how I admire that he has kept
his sense of humour, and the adaptation he has made
to such a hard situation. He says the nurses laugh
a lot, and are kind.

A person wants to stand in a happy place in a poem*,
the poet said, filling her poems with trees and birds
and her ability to see the small wonders, the same
ones that keep me, I explain, in a state of awe
and gratitude as I make my bumbling way
through this world.

 

*Italicized lines by Mary Oliver in her poem Singapore.