Pleasure
In our sadly precocious age
Only to the very, the truly, the genuine young at heart.
But pleasure can be a murky word
--
Hiding in the bushes of the Pleasure Gardens
Full of unwise promises and furtive gratifications.
In England I felt detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure
Along with the other crazies and lost souls
And as with certain love affairs
The pleasure turned out to be mostly Hers.
Guilty pleasures ! From forbidden carbohydrates to forbidden fruit,
The really seriously forbidden that gives the briefest high
Before the endless darkness of bitter repentance,
The fate my ancestral religion gave me as my equal opportunity.
So watch out for pleasure, my friends,
Especially the sneaky kind patterned with diamonds,
The kind you imagine you can share, or steal.
Delight
Delight ! Ah, now we're talking! What a delightful word,
What is delightful can be repeated, the upbeat stuff of daily life,
When I was a kid there was a dessert called Angels' Delight
And I aspired to no higher realm of the empyrean
As I plunged my six year-old spoon into its gloopy. chocolatty bubbliness
At the close of the interminable overcooked good-for-you fare of my England.
Now I take delight in, I derive delight from, I am an active partner with delight
It's a spring ride on a Mozart bicycle
With a safe helmet of air and fragrance
Delight is a project with a three year-old granddaughter who knows no limits
It is the billions of stars which set no limits
It is the cool waters off the mountains fit for heroes to plunge in
To desport with the loons, the illusion of youth
Buoyed up against the true gravity of the situation
Where my joints protest against the years of wear.
Happiness
Happiness is supposed to be deeper.
I find it an unfair question: "Are you happy?"
"With what?" Is my reply.
Happiness is like the weather
There can be good and bad days, years: building a shelter
And staying healthy inside it is a really good step
Especially if it's a sunny day outside
But it's a mistake to think that it can be controlled
Still less hunted down.
It can't be shot and mounted glassy-eyed
All my effort can't end with a trophy.
When a few chemicals can do the trick
No transfusion necessary.
As I just keep trundling along.
Joy
So what of joy?
Like other little words, a daunting prospect.
A powerful moment of happiness
That expands the moment
The heady inflation at the beginning of time
That disobeys the rules,
Overtakes other dimensions?
Or is it like the aether, surrounding us,
Hard to detect, invisible, enfolding all?
Ineffable, sempiternal, the pathways beyond us,
In the human realm to lead us by astonishment,
When it will?
Not to be bottled like a genie
To leap out to change the world
Or coded into a tomb's worth of memory.
It is the stuff of life if we can access it,
The rendered essence of the essence,
The windblown fire of the fire.
But now in this moment we wait
To conjure with a wave of the wand
The ocean extending before us
Embracing everything
Joy: unbound, untamed, nurturing, limitless.
