Joy curves in a trajectory: a poem for my son before school
A Golden Shovel for Marilyn Nelson1
Happiness, theologians tell me, is not joy,
but they haven’t seen how the ball curves
as it leaves your small hand and begins in
its journey toward my hand – not quite a
straight line, yet still its own trajectory.
Footnotes
- The Golden Shovel is a poetic form developed by Terrence Hayes in his poem “The Golden Shovel” in praise of Gwendolyn Brooks’ famous poem “we real cool.” In the form, the poet uses a line from another poem and places each word as the last word of the line in the new poem.