Tattooed

If I could just pick up the sun from here
and take it with me,
like warmth in my back pack,
joy tattooed on my cheek,
then nothing would bother me.

The endless mundanity of chores and living
would have company.
Would be lit from within
with a flame that keeps burning.

Oh, to move from here is hard.

Every challenge ahead
and ache behind
is stilled for a moment,
in the blessed quiet of an autumn afternoon.

Yes, when we move the heart can feel
like a body reminded of its stiff limbs,
that she must put on her salve
before heading back to work.

But perhaps,
with the sun in my backpack
or imprinted on the skin,
it might feel something like
the claiming of peace,

not just as a shield and fortress,
but a field,
with its boundaries
and its patch of green all one’s own.

All lit here
like an island the sun has sought to visit
entirely for its blessing,
and nothing else.

Yes, if I can carry that in my backpack,
I will rise up whistling.

That to try is all I can do.
Thanking goodness for the sun having wings
to keep finding us through windows.

Thanking goodness.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
May 2021