A blessing, a question

Patricia Spears Jones

USA

Today a poet makes a blessing
on the poets,
the mountains,
temple bells, the aspen ringing.

Athletic White people carry coffee cups or sports gear.
Their boys gleefully play in mini hockey rinks.
Is it bliss to not think about money?
The accountant’s plans followed; the foregone tax burden.

But there are burdens. Many shop clerks at the markets
are young, pretty women.
They know that everything is overpriced.
They ring up your purchases and smile their knowledge.

Here are the ones for whom abundance is ever present
and indifference to the lift operators, landscapers,
housekeepers, truck drivers, those sales clerks
is as noisy as the aspens trebling song.

Yes, we poets are here and walking through noting
Swiss like architecture—not the happiest place on earth,
Another miniature attempt at contentment,
this time for the sports inclined.

Let them hit hockey pucks or eat quinoa wraps
Or soothe muscles with a nouvelle vague massage—these are
days of lavish disregard and anxious cowardice,
with sorrows plenty and loves grand array fanning

The crimson blossoms at the bottom of the ocean
Who in the faux Swiss Village will ever dive that far?