Measuring the Day

These are small victories
for which measurement
seems impossible

or at the very least
impractical.

Joy doesn't arrive
to be cut up and evaluated.

It is with us
to be shivered with
as it passes
like a breeze
on the surface of
the mind's liquid longing
for permanent grasps
on a child's smile.

The Gathering

In places of prayer
and ecstatic music
my heart sends tethers
out into the heavens
with no hope of landing

but instead
lets these ribbons
of secret wishes
escape and fly free
to wherever they might
find a hand to hold.

The child of wonder
looks up at a rainbow of color
and gasps, smiles, laughs

jumping up to grasp
just one simple string
of joy to hold onto

if only for a lost
and lingering moment
gathered in the palm
of a small and impermanent
hand.