How pure a thing is joy

I always say I'm not very good at favorites. I find making such choices to be far too committal, not to mention unnecessary. Why rate things in such ways? I don't have top five places I've ever visited, I don't have a favorite book or song of all time. I have a web of beautiful things that I've spun in my psyche, and each one is good and important in a different way.

That being said, I just may have a favorite poem. I've reread this so many times that its rhythm has become a familiar place. When I want to be reminded how to live, how to make sense of our existence, of the great and terrible impermanence of our world, this is the place I come to.

What are years    

       What is our innocence,

what is our guilt? All are

       naked, none is safe. And whence

is courage; the unanswered question,

the resolute doubt -

dumbly calling, deafly listening - that

in misfortune, even death,

          encourages others

          and in its defeat, stirs

       the soul to be strong? He

sees deep and is glad, who

       accedes to mortality

and in his imprisonment rises

upon himself as

the sea in a chasm, struggling to be 

free and unable to be,

        in its surrendering

        finds it continuing. 

       So he who strongly feels

behaves. The very bird,

       grown taller as he sings, steels

his form straight up. Though he is captive,

his mighty singing

says, satisfaction is a lowly

thing, how pure a thing is joy. 

        This is mortality,

        this is eternity. 

Marianne Moore

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