IN PRAISE OF PAIN
By Patricia Wellingham-Jones

The red-gold flashes of outraged nerves
threw open my mind to the slow world,
the real world of each reluctant awakening,
of daily life unfolding, to the tissue-paper pink
of the early Mexican evening primrose.
To the unbearable faith of butterfly
wings lifting, to the warm earth smell
under freshly mowed grass,
and pheasants cackling two fields over.
To worms burrowing, fish
leaping in snow melt, white-rippled.
To birds carrying wisps of straw
to weave their treetop cradles.
If endurance of the unthinkable
is the heavy price exacted,
sharpened focus
is the unmeasurable gift.

Previously published in All Things Girl, 2003

Patricia Wellingham-Jones, former psychology researcher/writer/editor, has been published in journals, newspapers, anthologies, and online. Her most recent books are Don’t Turn Away: Poems About Breast Cancer, Labyrinth: Poems & Prose, Apple Blossoms at Eye Level and Lummox Press Little Red Book series, A Gathering Glance. She lives in northern California.

www.snowcrest.net/pamelaj/wellinghamjones/home.htm