overcome by ordinary contentment

A poem by Jane Kenyon (with the spacing fixed)

listen to me read this poem

(kinda crackly; pretend it’s on vinyl)

from “Having It Out With Melancholy”¹

9  WOOD THRUSH

High on Nardil and June light 
I wake at four, 
waiting greedily for the first
note of the wood thrush. Easeful air 
presses through the screen 
with the wild, complex song 
of the bird, and I am overcome

by ordinary contentment. 
What hurt me so terribly 
all my life until this moment? 
How I love the small, swiftly 
beating heart of the bird 
singing in the great maples; 
its bright, unequivocal eye.

1. A banger of a poem about depression