Joy

April 2009

Photo by Kristin Brown on Unsplash

“Let’s pretend you
had a good dream
every night…” she said
before discussing all of the things
on which you can pour honey –
girl talk on an April afternoon
with the sun playing hide and go seek
with heavy, silver clouds.
Blue jeans, butterflies, and
how the name Ringo Starr
rolls so nicely off the tongue –
these are the issues of the day,
and, oh, yes, Joy,
“I think it’s coming!”
she says as the clouds
begin to release a few
soft, warm drops.

Now that it is April, I’ve been thinking a lot about this poem that I wrote in April of 2009. March 17, 2020 was the day we began sheltering in place in my hometown. When it all started, I was worried about the things I’d miss — mostly big things — like going to work, taking my kids to swim lessons, seeing friends, etc. But, as it turns out, the things I miss the most are the little things like listening to The Beatles while driving my daughter to school and impromptu trips to the playground. It was these kinds of little things that I overheard two little girls talking about one day in April ’09 when I was walking though the park. It was their conversation that inspired this poem and our current situation that inspired me to read it, edit it, and re-publish it here (I published an older version of this poem in 2015 when I first joined Medium.)