A Quiet Joy

I’m standing in a place where I once loved.

The rain is falling. The rain is my home.

I think words of longing: a landscape

out to the very edge of what’s possible.

I remember you waving your hand

as if wiping mist from the windowpane,

and your face, as if enlarged

from an old blurred photo.

Once I committed a terrible wrong

to myself and others.

But the world is beautifully made for doing good

and for resting, like a park bench.

And late in life I discovered

a quiet joy

like a serious disease that’s discovered too late:

just a little time left now for quiet joy.