Many Joys

I pause to pick and thread my last song
harvesting joy scattered in your world, mixing
mingling with joy that makes the earth flow
over in the riotous excess of the grass.

And with joy that sets the twin brothers,
life and death, dancing over the wide world
and joy that sweeps in with the tempest
shaking and waking all life with laughter.

And with joy that sits still with its tears
on the open red lotus of pain,
and finally that joy that throws everything
it has on the dust singing a song of silence.

Adopted from Tagore’s Gitanjali, poem 58

Henry Victor          14.12.2012