Ode to Everything     

by Marjorie Maddox
                                                                                   

Enough of the lamentations.
                        Open the window and sing!
            The world is awash with
world: color-dripping globe always
tilting into some Ah! or another,
clouds stretching wide plump happiness,
            even in the noisy stage-show of showers,
            such sunny ovations.
                        And the birds—
overpopulating every poem—
swoop here for free—
swallow, hawk, robin, gull, eagle—what else
can be written but wings that wave
horizon to horizon?

And enough of windows.
                        Praise doors! Step out
            with arms open, and eyes gathering
            vim and vision: grandeur
trailing from worm and woodchuck,
branch puzzles of woods, open boat of breeze—
all brimming with Hey!
            and Hallelujah!
                        and Celebrate! such green giving
of thanks, such miraculous mercy of earth:
calm valley and even this rugged, rocky chain
we climb now as family, claiming praise as respite,
holding close each breaking day, dangerous
                        yet divine in all
                        its gorgeous glory.


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“Ode to Everything” was previously published in Plough.

Professor of English at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 13 collections of poetry—including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); Begin with a Question (Paraclete), and Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (Shanti Arts), an ekphrastic collaboration with photographer Karen Elias—What She Was Saying (stories, Fomite); 4 children’s and YA books—including Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems with Insider Exercises (Finalist International Book Awards), I’m Feeling Blue, Too! (a 2021 NCTE Notable Poetry Book), and Rules of the Game. See www.marjoriemaddox.com