Sometimes it’s best not to know what’s behind the curtain; the facade is pleasing to the eye for a reason, and once we look behind it we start to get jaded and cynical.

In more introspective moments, I can trace the growth of my cynicism. Always waiting for the other shoe to drop, never expecting anything to work out because it seemed safer that way. Less chance of being disappointed. Less chance of getting emotionally invested in what was bound to be a failure.

Squaring that against the many measurable successes that I’ve had never seems to make up for it on a more visceral level. It would be nice - just for a brief moment - to experience once again that bliss of ignorance, that feeling that things are just going to work out and be fine.

Today’s poem captures that thought perfectly.

Please Don't

tell the flowers—they think
the sun loves them.
The grass is under the same
simple-minded impression

about the rain, the fog, the dew.
And when the wind blows,
it feels so good
they lose control of themselves

and swobtoggle wildly
around, bumping accidentally into their
slender neighbors.
Forgetful little lotus-eaters,

solar-powered
hydroholics, drawing nourishment up
through stems into their
thin green skin,

high on the expensive
chemistry of mitochondrial explosion,
believing that the dirt
loves them, the night, the stars—

reaching down a little deeper
with their pale albino roots,
all Dizzy
Gillespie with the utter
sufficiency of everything.

They don't imagine lawn
mowers, the four stomachs
of the cow, or human beings with boots
who stop to marvel

at their exsquisite
flexibility and color.
They persist in their soft-headed

hallucination of happiness.
But please don't mention it.
Not yet. Tell me
what would you possibly gain

from being right?

-- Tony Hoagland