Overheard

Ross Gay is one of our favorite poets. He writes in a brutally honest way about sadness, but always points out that there is much to delight in. He has said “delight often emerges very beautifully out of a kind of compost of sorrow.” Perfect words as we emerge from a pandemic and look forward to better times.

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Overheard 

by Ross Gay 

It’s a beautiful day 

the small man said from behind me 

and I could tell he had a slight limp 

from the rasp of his boot against the sidewalk 

and I was slow to look at him 

because I’ve learned to close my ears 

against the voices of passersby, which is easier than closing 

them to my own mind, 

and although he said it I did not hear it 

until he said it a second or third time 

but he did, he said It’s a beautiful day and something 

in the way he pointed to the sun unfolding 

between two oaks overhanging a basketball court 

on 10th Street made me, too 

catch hold of that light, opening my hands 

to the dream of the soon blooming 

and never did he say forget the crick in your neck 

nor your bloody dreams; he did not say forget 

the multiple shades of your mother’s heartbreak, 

nor the father in your city 

kneeling over his bloody child, 

nor the five species of bird this second become memory, 

no, he said only, It’s a beautiful day, 

this tiny man 

limping past me 

with upturned palms 

shaking his head 

in disbelief.