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Compensatory Joy
Georgia Ressmeyer

If you estimate peak
leaf by leaf as lily-lover God
must—hairs-on-your-head,
sparrows-in-freefall God—
you don’t discount what is
for what’s expected,
single note for crescendo,
firework for grand finale
but stand inside the drip-line
of each tree and watch
the flush of greeting spread
lobe by lobe, leaflet by leaflet
until you know by a slow
process of accretion one
lingering, compensatory joy
in the otherwise impossible job
of being, and staying, God.

 

 

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