WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Thursday, August 26, 2021

EXUBERANT

            I need to look more carefully for the natural exuberance of life, the way it seems to constantly revel in its own liveliness. I should think more about the marvelous fact that, in our little neighborhood, lungs are regularly rising and falling, hearts are pumping with good predictability, and lush darkness and vivacious sunshine take turns cleansing us each night and day. Yes, there is tragedy and terror all across the earth, but there is far more ebullience and buoyancy. Just now, my jaws are vigorously moving in order to chew some tasty pretzels, thousands of cars and trucks are efficiently flowing along the nearby interstate, and water is irrepressibly pouring from the kitchen faucet as Delycia rinses some dishes. There’s sorrow across the world, yes, but there’s also jubilation – in the breezes that dance around millions of homes, in the lively sounds in kitchens as food is prepared, and in the bouncy way that branches bend and rise in winds.  I need to look for the exultation in life more than for the gloom. There’s celebration even in the way birds feed at our feeders, and I should share in it by sometimes simply standing still and watching and cheering.     

IN ABUNDANCE

In Abundance, South Carolina, 
there is a profusion of pleasant feelings
flowing out from everywhere - 
from homes, from stones in fences, from puzzles 
people are putting together together. 
Here, there is affluence 
even in grilled cheese sandwiches, 
even in raisins sitting on a plate beside a magazine.  
Citizens have noticed exuberance in sunrises,
in scissors slicing through paper, 
even in legs lifting and falling while walking. 
In Abundance, there's always opulence 
in the zestful zigzags of life,
and when disasters have struck, there's speedily been 
the bulldozing of problems by friendship 
with its lavishness and its feeling of blue skies. 

Better bring big bags to hold all the goodness
when you pay a visit to Abundance, SC.