Wild Joy

This poem goes searching for the source of wild joy.

It looks first toward untamed places, then toward other living beings, human creativity, and the expressive possibilities of the body.

Eventually, the search itself reveals the answer.

Wild joy does not belong exclusively to any one source.

It is within us, outside us, and all around us—waiting to be encountered wherever we become willing to look.

I love the idea of wild joy.

Not simply happiness or pleasure, but a kind of joy that feels expansive, embodied, playful, and a little untamed.

This poem begins by wondering where that feeling actually comes from.

My first instinct is to look toward nature:

“Found amidst the untamed parts
Where wild things reside”

There is something about wandering into places that have not been completely arranged for human convenience that makes possibility feel larger to me. An untrodden path contains the simple thrill of not yet knowing what I will encounter.

But then the poem keeps looking.

Perhaps wild joy lives in the other beings inhabiting those places—the plants, birds, insects, and animals participating in life around us.

Perhaps it lives in what humans create: the strange and wonderful capacity to imagine something that does not yet exist and then bring it into the world.

And perhaps it lives in our bodies:

“Designed for dancing
Play and sport”

That section feels particularly important to me because joy becomes something we do. We sing. Stomp. Dance. Drum. Play. Breathe. The body is not merely where joy is felt; it is one of the ways joy becomes tangible.

By then, the original question has started to dissolve.

“It is within
It is without
It is all around”

Wild joy isn't located exclusively in the wilderness, another creature, something beautiful we've made, or even within ourselves.

It emerges through our relationship with all of them.

That is why the final realization is not that joy was secretly inside us all along:

“Your wild joy is everywhere
You haven't thought to look for it”

I like that distinction.

Sometimes joy does arise from within. Sometimes something outside us genuinely delights us. Sometimes we create it deliberately, and sometimes we stumble unexpectedly into it.

Perhaps the more useful question is not where does joy come from?

Perhaps it is: where haven't I looked yet?

The world is enormous. Our bodies are alive. Our imaginations create things that did not exist before. Other living beings surround us. There are places we have never been and experiences we have never had.

Wild joy, then, feels less like something I must possess and more like something I can continually discover.

Within.

Without.

And all around.