This Quiet Day

I love this poem. I pulled it from Roger Housden's wonderful anthology Dancing with Joy: 99 Poems. His collections are marvelous.

Mind Wanting More

Only a beige slat of sun
above the horizon, like a shade pulled
not quite down. Otherwise,
clouds. Birds reluctant to fly.
The mind wants a shaft of sun to
stir the grey porridge of clouds,
an osprey to stitch the sea to the sky
with its barred wings, some dramatic
music: a symphony, perhaps
a Chinese gong.

But the mind always
want more than it has--
one more bright day of sun,
one more clear night in bed
with the moon: one more hour
to get the words right; one
more chance for the heart in hiding
to emerge from its thicket
in dried grasses--as if this quiet day
with its tentative light weren't enough,
as if joy weren't strewn all around.

--Holly Hughes