No Day Is Lost

“And then-- there is is a profit in all things for anyone really in search of it.”

-- Albert Camus (11/22/1937), from Notebooks, 1935-1942

Some days seem far removed

from any wonder or miracle,

too much trash and paperwork,

too many aches and pains,

and you might wish, vainly,

that such time would vanish,

erased from the calendar,

hours you did not need--

and yet, you’d be wrong.

Somewhere, in some corner

there is a glimpse or a thought

unknown to any other day,

one waiting for you to stumble

into its illumination,

some discovery which will send you

in the direction of tomorow

with that best of all possible feelings,

some great task accomplished.  

Joy

Tonight there is a moon,

more than half, almost gibbous,

brightening the ground,

a gathering of stars,

perhaps a planet or two

in the clear spaces

between the streams of clouds,

and why would I not be happy?

It is a glorious world

where I spent the day

among carefree children

whose movements set to rest

all my fears and doubts,

for at least one more day.

What is this all for,

if not the joy of play,

and now this heavenly beauty

before I go to sleep?

Summer Evening, 1976

On summer evenings in Oak Park,

after the quiet of supper,

the talk and laughter of play

danced again along the street

from porch to steps to sidewalk.

It was a world full of people

until the signal for retreat,

a street light touching the dark

with its anxious chemical glow.

Through open bedroom windows

came murmurs and half-heard sounds,

the background of a bedtime story:

thinning traffic on the boulevard,

a distant train sliding to its stop

and pools of spreading silence,

the day conceding to the night.