eyes

I spy something green
and it starts with a T,
and you know (knowing me)
that it’s a tree,
a carefree tree,
for the carefree me
of childhood.
But that was then
and this is now.
I have spied so much anger, so much grief,
so much hurt
that sometimes I want to close my eyes
and spy
nothing at all.
Sometimes it seems as if the whole world
has gone mad
and squeezed the life out of life.
Maybe I care too much
to be carefree.
But then, even behind closed eyes,
I spy something green,
something growing,
and I return
to the childhood game—
with one change:
I spy…something beautiful.
For there is always beauty
of some kind, somewhere.
At this moment,
I spy beauty in a summer-full tree,
a billow of leaves
bowing in the breeze,
waving to three geese winging past
across an evening sky the color of wishes
and strawberry ice cream.
A firefly winks in the cool dark of a hedge.
I catch the scent of newly bloomed jasmine.
I spy beauty.
It’s a game I need
no matter where I am,
no matter what else I spy.
It’s a game I must play
with my whole heart.
Because in the end,
it’s not a game.
-kh-