Why We Stay

I am on the porch with strong coffee.
All the artists, poets, philosophers with
no reason, and the haphazard gardeners

are sleeping in or waking to their visions.
At the feeder - the first birds of the morning:
chickadees in their black-and-white cassocks,

the house finches, their muted red scarves
head to shoulder, nuthatches upside down.
This is the way the day is to be - loved

without definition. Joy known without
needing sorrow. It is only quiet, first
light moving in its unencumbered way

across each leaf, branched or fallen. Deep
in itself the earth trembles, our own way
lost and lingering at an unfelt edge.

~ Jack Ridl