tears

Tears
I’ve learned how to weep now,
not in sadness,
but in joy.
My days are filled with tears,
filled with joy. . .
celebratory tears.

My regrets are lost
in the back waters of history

I tear at the beauty of Ann
As she struggles to regain her sanity.
At the memory of two daughters growing up
At how proud I am of their career achievements.

I tear at the clarity of a morning sunrise
The gentleness of each sunset.
The cycle of day and night
a celestial symbol of life.

My life has been a life of sunrises
But now it’s ablaze in sunsets.

I tear at just the sweep of that history
A child of immigrant parents in poverty,
to a doctorate -In one generation
The Canadian story!

I weep at the wonderment of nature
The sway of grasses in a meadow,
The grace of a forest path,
The fearful beauty of ocean waves,
The exquisite diversity of floral life.

I marvel at how evolution
Gave us giraffes and ants,
Whales and goldfish
Herons and chickadees.

The shock of thunder cracking the sky
The breathtaking flash of lightening,
fill me with awe.

I’m in awe of the minutiae of banal things.
How or why my gall bladder evolved.
Or my eye, my tongue, my finger tip
Which registers temperature
But also humidity. Wow!

The sensitivity it controls
as it hungrily caresses
the curves of a naked lover.

A cliff face or a road cut
Or the Grand Canyon
Set my heart a flutter of the time
When each layer reveals
Earth’s history

Each layer, captures millions of years .
And each layer contains a form of life at that time.

We were dinosaurs once
What a freak of nature that
we became humans.

I stand on a pile of glacial debris
Looking up at a night sky millions of years ago.
What am I in all this?
I weep at the magnitude of it all.

I weep too, as I watch Taylor Swift
In anonymous autumn wear,
Cap and glasses,
As she comes upon a old black busker
Playing the blues on his guitar in Central Park.
She joins in. .

After a few songs he says “you’ve got talent girl”
Someone in the growing crowd
Shouts “that’s Taylor Swift”
The crowd grows, the money flows
The guitar filled with $52,000
Which became a street buskers fund.

It’s a wonderful life.

In another clip a man walks in a park
Farting in a wide range of solos.
I laugh so loud at the reaction of passerbys
I am convulsed in tears.

Everyday I listen to choirs from around the world.

They never fail to leave me tearful
Nor a gifted cellist or sumptuous orchestra.
They fill my quiet moments with immense joy.

And dogs, gods angels without wings.
I weep at dogs’ meeting a newborn child
the first time in the home.

Or carrying their pup, to sleep with the sleeping child.

Dogs, reuniting with its owner, after a separation,

Or a child reacts to her returning warrior dad.

Rejoicing with such joy I burst into tears.

Tears, yes oceans of tears,
Fill my day with joy.

There is so much joy at every glance,
Around every corner,
Every day.
I am so privileged to die this way.