Linda Gregg writes, “The dark thing is hardly visible/ in the leaves, under the sheen.” But it is there (and, reading the news, I understand it is nearly everywhere).
The bands and the folkloric dancers whetting our appetites for the coming weeks of celebration cannot camouflage it.
A Dark Thing Inside the Day
–Linda Gregg
So many want to be lifted by song and dancing
and this morning it is easy to understand.
I write in the sound of chirping birds hidden
in the almond trees, the almonds still green
and thriving in the foliage. Up the street,
a man is hammering to make a new house as doves
continue their cooing forever. Bees humming
and high above that a brilliant clear sky.
The roses are blooming and I smell the sweetness.
Everything desirable is here already in abundance.
And the sea. The dark thing is hardly visible
in the leaves, under the sheen. We sleep easily.
So I bring no sad stories to warn the heart.
All the flowers are adult this year. The good
world gives and the white doves praise all of it.
https://samofthetenthousandthings.wordpress.com/2016/07/05/linda-gregg-a-dark-thing-inside-the-day/
- Consider translating the white doves’ praise, the bees’ humming, the chirping birds’ noise. Is it song, praise, complaint?
