Sore knees, happy heart

Today, as I have done nearly every day for the past few months, I hauled cut tea-trees out to the cliff top to form protective barriers in an attempt to subdue the wind as it roars in from Storm Bay and hammers the little tree seedlings sheltering in, what turns out to have been, flimsy plastic bags. Who knows whether or not this strategy of woven tea-tree “doughnuts” will do the trick? Just have to do it.

And, even if these monster barriers, themselves, get blown away, what can’t be taken from me is the tremendous joy I have felt just being there. Sure, my knees and back get sore, but the residual happiness left over at the end of the day more than makes up for a wee bit of physical hardship.

Today, as I have done every day I come to these cliff tops, I took time to look around and marvel at what I saw. Something of interest will always catch my eye.

Today, a white boat caught in a shaft of sunlight while all around dark clouds and dark water lay in wait.

The inner happiness I was experiencing. despite the harshness of the weather, reminded me of this Marge Piercy poem:

If they come in the night

Long ago on a night of danger and vigil
a friend said, Why are you happy?
He explained (we lay together on a hard cold floor) what prison
meant because he had done
time, and I talked of the death
of friends. Why are you happy
then, he asked, close to
angry.

I said, I like my life. If I
have to give it back, if they
take it from me, let me only
not feel I wasted any, let me
not feel I forgot to love anyone
I meant to love, that I forgot
to give what I held in my hands,
that I forgot to do some little
piece of the work that wanted
to come through.

Sun and moonshine, starshine,
the muted grey light off the waters
of the bay at night, the white
light of the fog stealing in,
the first spears of the morning
touching a face
I love. We all lose
everything. We lose
ourselves. We are lost.

Only what we manage to do
lasts, what love sculps from us;
but what I count, my rubies, my
children, are those moments
wide open when I know clearly
who I am, who you are, what we
do, a marigold, an oakleaf, a meteor,
with all my senses hungry and filled
at once like a pitcher with light.

Marge Piercy