New to You

There's joyfulness when purchasing
a thing that's new, computer mouse
or comforter, a pack of pencils, even
(all the possibilities there stored!),
a house when all the paint is fresh and smelly,
sawdust not quite gone from every
corner, little threads of carpet lying
here and there, the stickers on the windows still
you'll scrape at later, when the boxes are
unpacked at last. There's different joy in looking
through the bins of thrift stores, finding treasures
others cast off for the profit or disdain
or sheer ignorance, not noticing the value of
the porcelain with just the slightest chip, or dress
that's in your size and perfect other than that tiny,
faintest stain, or postcard in an ancient flowery
hand from someone who's been dead for
decades written to someone he loved and
now can be with through eternity in glory land.
New to you, then, whether pricey or
almost a steal, each joy a little different,
but the smiles they bring alike.
We're hardwired to accumulate, consume, and use,
discard, an evolution from the days we had to
weave and spin and grow and sew or do without
completely, when what new we had was in the sunrise
every morning, in the children born, the learning how
of skills we take for granted now, and pay someone
to do so that we have more time to shop, and
there is joy in that as well. The joy of living is
the constant, whether we are wealthy, poor, extravagant
or thrifty, if we haven't trained ourselves to overlook
the happiness of daily "new."



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014