Joy will rise

Joy will rise.

Trample on it, beat it down, it will live.

Joy is sunlight, it’s rain,

it’s life blazing up to the sky in vines and white flowers, it’s mud that shields the root, it’s wind breathing.

Do your worst—

joy will rise,

not to torment you, but because it must. It doesn’t know what else to do.

Birds open their throats and song pours out.

Joy will defy your gravity, always.