SO MANY SMALL MARVELS

by Lenny Lianne


She fiddles with the back of her beach chair
as a narrow band of foam
forms a few feet out
and a wave begins to curl into itself.

When she was a little girl, she asked
her grandmother to tell her
why waves are foam
when they meet the beach.
Patiently it was explained how each

wave has its own journey. As the waves
near the beach,
they forget their own past
and, giddy at last, float in.
The bubbles, she said, were so, when
you tried to catch them in your hands,
they could wiggle themselves free.

As two or three rootless clouds
progress across the panorama
of sky above her
and fade into the rim
of the horizon,
she asks, of this life,
what still can be savored?

And answers softly: like angels
dancing on the head of a pin,
there are so many small marvels
in this graceful world:

a gull with wings extended
hovers, nearly stationary,
and the tranquil curl of a wave
she noticed only seconds ago
trembles and stretches itself
along the sun-drenched shore. 

Over and over, these pleasures reveal
the secret of each new moment:
happy are the happy.