Joyous Circle
A reverie about children, play, fleeting moments, restorative appreciation... just to name a few!
Forget about those heavenly choirs and nattering angels,
noisomely drunk on their hoary Hosannahs!
Just check out the young ones at play in our intimate, joyous circle…
There's Rob, the dealer, handing out Monopoly play cash likes wads of salubrious lettuce,
And Benjamin and Emma wheeling and reeling in their fantastical paper fortunes, as if wealth could bring the happiness that this game now does.
Mags reads on, her novel on belly and sofa... face smiled-high by sci-fi.
While Han & Dan fervidly construct the spiral track for their
rowdy race car madness.
Adults, relaxed, some semi-tipsy, do not lubricate the scene.
They ponder, wonder... remember distant lost thunder
Drowsy elders, paused in reverie, crash by the firelight...
but one has a pocket wide and a lid propped open... to take in this vivid token.
—— Albert Fried-Cassorla, December 26, 1998, revised January 6, 2002