Laugh Anyway...

[jbn42]

Interesting...I was, for some inexplicable reason, combing back through some emails I wrote when I lived in Boston in 2001 - they are, for lack of a better description, a journal of my experiences in a completely foreign place (until I moved to Boston, I'd never lived anywhere north of Tulsa, OK). I called the email series "Stranger in a Strange Land", which was eventually shortened to SISL. I literally wrote them every day for an entire semester - I was getting my Master's at BU - and in them, I got into the habit of closing each day with a poem. Usually, they were not my own work, but some of them were, and I think I may post some of them here over the next few weeks...I found this one this morning, and it made me smile (keep my perspective in mind - I'd never seen snow as an adult prior to moving to New England, and I moved there in January!) -

LAUGH ANYWAY

Look at that fool!
You see her-
She’s sliding through the snow
Catching snowflakes on her tongue.

Doesn’t she know
This snow only means
More work, shoveling out
Slippery roads and sidewalks?

What is she thinking,
Smiling and laughing
As she walks through the onslaught
Dreaded by most?

She knows it means work,
She enjoys it;
The work has its own rewards
Leaving her joyful and energized.

She walks through the lazy flakes
Remembering for a moment
What it feels like to be a child
Experiencing wonder again.

The falling snow brings with it
A magic all its own,
Akin to gazing at the ocean
Or getting lost in a star-filled sky.

Maybe you do think her a fool,
Maybe you think she shouldn’t laugh.
That’s all right with her; she’ll just smile,
Shrug her shoulders and laugh anyway.