A path before me

lights up with autumn color—

see, I skip for joy!

Summer’s first small joy:

finding a speckled feather

on my patio.

Little brown sparrow,

I have no use this morning

for your songs of joy.

Slug on the sidewalk,

do you portend great sorrows

or unbounded joy?

First small joy of spring—

a young boy at the bike store

gets a bargain price.

From a sparrow’s throat

songs of joy spill on a branch—

autumn afternoon.

With a shriek of joy,

a hawk greets the morning sun

and begins to hunt.

Joy

Night of the first snow—

if the world ended right now,

my joy would be full.

Tidings

Tidings of great joy

peal out from a weathered bell—

a baby is born!

Welcoming April—

even the monk in his cell

seems giddy with joy.