A JOYFUL MAN

What I have lived
I unlive this day,
except in my heart
and my poems,
and in the gardens
left behind
that carry me to you.

These are not petrified gardens
of melancholic monuments.
They are living testaments
to a life well lived.
They are an ongoing tribute
to a lifetime of offerings
in place of acquisitions;
of friendship without motive.

Often, I confess confusion,
but never with this irrefutable truth:
From the day I met you,
until the day when I become
a shadow and a dream,
I have never been,
nor will be,
abandoned by joy.

Joy often hides
behind ephemeral clouds,
or occasionally flips upside-down,
or even whirls,
in a spiritual journey,
like whirling dervishes.

But what it never does,
even in spells of loneliness,
is leave me.
Joy is always with me.
It will always be
because you were here.

You are in my heart
and in my poems.
You live in my center,
as both the girl
and the woman
of my story.

I know this,
I never tire of dreaming
or writing about you.
I never tire of being
a joyful man.

© JOHN PISCATELLA