Maybe it comes from the gray
clouds swirling fast in the heavens

like thoughts in a mother’s head.
Perhaps it’s the solitary crane soaring

low over sea or the bare apple tree.
or the cherry, its leaves turning 

a Midas-gold, a few florins now resting 
upon the ground. Or is it the bird 

house or the bath emptied of its warmth, 
its chatter, its spray?  Could it be 

the coming on of winter?
                        

Beauty and happiness come! Unexpectedly
in the single seconds that make up our days. 
They come as two mourning doves umbrellaing
together under the branches of the lacy, tea-green
fern just outside the rain-flecked window. 
They come as the Japanese Beetle, its metallic-blue
and green head, its copper-colored back and tan
wings, almost hidden in the rose bush confiscated
from our mother’s garden. They come in the sun’s 
slant in mid-afternoon. In a deceased sister’s succulents
surviving the winter’s hard freeze. In baby’s breath.
They come to one awaiting a bone marrow transplant, 
to his spouse of forty-nine years packing for the one 
hundred days away from home in the city of steel 
and strangers. They come to the refugee fleeing
her birth country, a brimming paper bag and walking
cane her only possessions.
                        

We lie. Othello lied, Clinton and Nixon,
Jay Gatsby and King David, too, the results
often as consequential as today’s climate 
change. Babies fake-cry, and children blame
other children when they get into trouble.
We cheat on our spouses, we concoct 
elaborate hoaxes, we build fat Ponzi schemes,
sending investors to financial doom. We tell
bold-faced untruths with straight faces, 
using words as smooth as an Oreo’s fondant. 
We cover up, put on facades, pretend to be what
we are not. Like the Greeks tricking the Trojans
with the wooden horse. Like Judas betraying 
his master with a kiss. Like you feigning courage
as you hug family goodbye for an uncertain
season of sickness.