Living Tree Poetry

I want to write of joy,

but not the joy that parades,
the joy that needs bells and whistles,
occasions.

I want to write of joy

that arrives in every season,
that undergirds all the fleeting feelings
arising.

I want to write of joy,

but not of the overblown rose with
her scents and opulence,
her full headed extravagance,

but of something small,
simple, unassuming,
bashful even its graciousness.

I want to write of the joy

that ever goes unnoticed
for its ordinariness,
the sight of it common as the grass, the trees.

This is the joy that when asked
to measure our days, we will recognise
as the underlying feature

as common as the daisies,
lifting their bright heads.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
October 2020

“So take joy home,

And make a place in thy great heart for her,

And give her time to grow, and cherish her;

Then will she come, and oft will sing to thee,

When thou art working in the furrows; ay,

Or weeding in the sacred hour of dawn.

It is a comely fashion to be glad—

Joy is the grace we say to God…”

~Jean Ingelow, “Dominion,” A Story of Doom and Other Poems, 1867