Recipe for a life: one cup of joy dealt generously in childhood, then sparingly until it seems no more meagre drops can be shaken into the mix.  Is it all in the brain, as childhood’s neurons spark, carving channels through malleable tissue?  Then things stiffen, jell, until no emotions can move save perhaps an occasional discharge of anger or grief?

But then a morning when
the night before
Venus and Mars paraded across the heavens
this morning two more sparks, Jupiter, Saturn,
leading lights
heading into the West
until the sun drowns us all in light.

We have always wanted to go into the West.
How could we not with this stately
diurnal/nocturnal parade of light that moves
always, always into the West?

So we go into the West where the fountain of joy is,
and everywhere the flutter of wings,  restlessly waiting,
ducks, starlings, pigeons,
flowers of frost, the harbour calm as a bowl of milk,
distant ships that will never find the port I seek.
Gulls cry, cutting the morning apart.

MMV