The Joy Path

The Joy Path

Karen An-hwei Lee

After the insufferable season—
a joy path winds through a prairie of wildflowers, waist high—
magnolias hold soft dishes of light perfume—

when the world opens up, we are surprised
to bathe in the warm nooks of fellow humans,
our fragrance of the mammalian

like the sweet, shaggy blessing of a tree fringed with bearded blossoms—
we offer our little umbels of gratitude,
the blue catmint of wonder and Solomon’s seal, the star-struck faces

of glossy abelia and honeysuckle swaying to the hymns
of bee ecstasy in the sage and rhododendrons— the world stirs,
and oceans swing their doors to our unmasked, drenched hunger

after a time of hiddenness— we dare to enter in
with the deepest blue hallelujahs
wafting to a meadow lake of minnows.

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Karen An-hwei Lee
Poet & Professor

Karen is Provost and Professor of English at Wheaton College. Her new poetry collection Duress is soon to appear as part of the Poiema Poetry Series from Cascade Books.

Photography by Anna Shevchuk