Melancholia

i.
 
My friend tells me I tend toward the low moods, where a blue sky is blue with torrent, an accusation I cannot deny. In my mind, I trace the contour of a lonely bog, searching the moor for another feeling to contradict what he says, his words weightless, rising.
 
I walk alone among the grasses. The curve of a thrush reaches for a beautiful branch on which to land.
 
At one time they called it lugubriousness from the Latin word lugere or “to mourn,” and that is what my blue landscape feels like, thoughtful recognition of and witness to the wounds of this world—the dead mouse on the trail, a child strangled by his mother’s boyfriend, a country devoid of wisdom, thoughts no longer rising, but dead weight, a contradiction to joy.
 
Sadness they say.
 
A response to trauma, the blue fingers, the blue scream, the blue spittle, the blue thrust, the blue pain, the blue blue blue blue—
 
 
ii.
 
I ate a bowl of blueberries and felt a kind of joy. Solace on the tongue. Sweetness even.
 
I told a humorous story among friends. Everyone laughed, and I laughed too.
 
I trimmed the stems of daffodils, put the flowers in a vase I’d found at a thrift shop for $6.
The yellow of petal and clay shined so brightly, the birds outside chittered and sang.
 
And when the blue lays out like a second skin, another language, another way to breathe, still there is goodness everywhere I look.
 
 
iii.
 
I will always mourn that which cries out for witness. No matter how I choose to breathe.