! Sweet And Sour Poem by Michael Shepherd

but some mornings
while of course you’d like to write
a poem, there’s nothing there;
so you read a poem that ‘someone else’ wrote
though of course it’s your mind reading it

and after you/I read it,
there drifted into the mind the phrase
‘the sweetness of life’…

a phrase more common,
even more evocative -
‘douceur de vie’
(or even plural.. ‘petit douceurs’…))
in French writings..

how wonderful the workings
of the mind: that first, tiny
explosion of consciousness in the mind
instantly offers in language
duality; and opposites;
take your choice,
and be bound by it…

so, there was sweetness: which this morning
seemed a mile away;
and… sourness! Yes, of course!
life has been… just a little sour… these last few weeks
for no apparent reason – though of course
I could offer reasons flattering to me…

Yet also, heavenly grace, as it may be,
presenting duality, allows
the glory of a unity to be seen:

this morning, knowing life as both sweet and sour,
both and neither,
I’ll choose what’s been lacking
(which is the definition of pure desire…) and
without even the wish to elaborate –

just to name it, in its beauty to the mind,

the sweetness of life;

it’s like a poem in itself.