Where is it today?
I can’t find it, can’t feel it.
I think I chased it away
with my complaints, my disappointment.

Must be hiding outside—
in the neighbor’s rosebushes, perhaps,
or in the purple Russian sage down the street.

Wait. Why down the street?
It doesn't hide: it waits to be found.
It's probably here in my house, curled up
with my complaints—napping in the gloom
until I welcome it again.

I think it's peeking at me now
from the bubbles in the bathtub
where a five-year-old—
my Rio Belle, my granddaughter—
pours soapy water in a cup,
serves me coffee, cappuccino,
then shoos me away and tells me
to come back as a new customer.
I remind her that her hair needs washing.
You're being so dramatic, she responds.
I crack up, she guffaws,
we call each other hilarious—
life shining again, like the olive oil
and lemon on the salad I made earlier,
fresh as the taste of gratitude.  


© by Lori Levy.
Used with the author’s permission.