Dayna Patterson
Paradox
How can we truly love this world--
Love it right to its iron core--
And be always preparing to leave it
At the same time?
How can we, like Maurice Sendak,
Be in love with the tree
Outside the office window
With its silver sunlit leaves
All the while letting it go,
Making space by millimeters to allow
Release?
How do we collide atoms of joy
With atoms of sorrow
To make a new beast?
There is only this—that we must.
Drink tall glasses of mirth.
Love the world,
Love it fully,
While learning slowness, decay,
Flowing into earth.
Paradox
How can we truly love this world--
Love it right to its iron core--
And be always preparing to leave it
At the same time?
How can we, like Maurice Sendak,
Be in love with the tree
Outside the office window
With its silver sunlit leaves
All the while letting it go,
Making space by millimeters to allow
Release?
How do we collide atoms of joy
With atoms of sorrow
To make a new beast?
There is only this—that we must.
Drink tall glasses of mirth.
Love the world,
Love it fully,
While learning slowness, decay,
Flowing into earth.
Dayna Patterson’s chapbooks, Loose Threads and Mothering, are available from Flutter Press. Her creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in North American Review, REAL, and Weave, among others. She is the mother of two and editor for Psaltery & Lyre.