Marigolds

 

There are days where nothing works.

Not forgiveness, not gratitude, not

even an excursion into the silence,

inside, which currently sports a

"Do Not Disturb" sign.

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No, nothing works.

Quirks and quandaries cut

like knives while the dismal

drone of the daily quotidian 

beats a bad rhythm

​

in your fragile heart

yearning to stay present,

accepting...well,

like I said -

it doesn't work.

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Yet amidst the sludge of such

dark sky thoughts, twirling your

life round to the ground like the

spiral of a falling feather, you

sense a nudge, happen to look up

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and see that pot of marigolds,

you know, the ones you planted

in the hopes that the sun of

their faces would shine you

back to the bright side of now...

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and it does.

​

Arlene Gay Levine

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"Marigolds" won Third Place in the 2016 Spirit First Meditation Poetry Contest out of 2,406 entries from around the world.

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