The Golden Day, by Joan Leotta

Golden Day, photograph by Joan Leotta (USA) contemporary

The Golden Day
 
My friend, on seeing my photo 
of dawn’s bright gold spilling into our pond,
pouring over the grass in waves
until it splashes up to meet my window,
told me she loved the photo and to 
“enjoy your golden day.”
 
Indeed, even without such a glorious 
dawn it is easy to think of 
our son’s birthday as a golden day, 
be thankful, even filled with joy
that this dear boy was in our
living world for nineteen years. 
 
I was nervous on that day
about the planned cesarean
bringing him into the world
before he was necessarily quite ready
making him a Wednesday’s child 
because that was the surgeon’s preferred day
to extricate him from my womb.
 
As soon as he stepped into our world
everything shone brighter--
for my husband, for our daughter, his sister,
and for me—indeed, a golden day.
 
Nor do I recall the weather on the
day his spirit strode ahead of us
into Paradise, a golden day for him, 
leaving a space in our lives that we
fill with tales of remembered joy,
looking forward to rejoining him there
one day—a golden day.
 
PS: Were you looking for a date for my golden day? I did not include one, so you can take the rich aura of such a day and make it yours, today, or any day.
 
Joan Leotta

Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She performs tales of food, family, and strong women. Internationally published as an essayist, poet, short story writer, and novelist,  she’s a 2021 and 2022 Pushcart nominee, Best of the Net 2022 nominee, and  2022 runner-up in Robert Frost Competition. Her essays, poems, CNF, and fiction appear in Impspired, The Ekphrastic Review, Verse Visual, Verse Virtual, Gargoyle, Silver Birch, Yellow Mama, Mystery Tribune, Ovunquesiamo, MacQueen’s Quinterly and others.  Her poetry chapbooks are Languid Lusciousness with Lemon and  Feathers on Stone.