In Summer, in a burst of summertime
Following falls and falls of rain,
When the air was sweet-and-sour of the flown fineflower of
Those goldnails and their gaylinks that hang along a lime…
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “Cheery Beggar”

What I wanted
wasn’t to let in the wetness.
That can be mopped.

Nor the cold.
There are blankets.

What I wanted was
the siren, the thunder, the neighbor,
the fireworks, the dog’s bark.

Which of them didn’t matter?

Yes, this world is perfect,
all things as they are.

But I wanted
not to be
the one sleeping soundly, on a soft pillow,
clean sheets untroubled,
dreaming there still might be time,

while this everywhere crying
~Jane Hirshfield “I Open the Window” from The Asking

Sweet and sour extends far beyond a Chinese menu; it is the air we breathe.  Dichotomy is in our life and times – the bittersweet of simple pleasures laced with twinges and tears.

I am but a cheery beggar in this world, desiring to hang tight to the overwhelming sweetness of each glorious moment:

the startling late summer sunrise,
the renewed green coming through the dead of spent fields,
the warm hug of a compassionate word,
a house filled with love and laughter.

But as beggars aren’t choosers, I can’t only have sweet alone;
I must endure the sour that comes as part of the package —

the deepening dark of a sleepless and restless night,
the muddy muck that comes after endless rain,
the sting of a biting critique,
the emptiness when younger ones head home.

So I slog through sour to revel some day in sweet. 

Months of manure-permeated air is overcome one miraculous morning by the unexpected and undeserved fragrance of apple blossoms, so sweet, so pure, so full of promise of the wholesome fruit to come.

The manure makes the sweet sweeter months later, long after the stench is gone.

And I breathe in deeply now, content and grateful for this moment of grace and bliss, wanting to hold it in the depths of my lungs forever, its mercy overwhelming the power of sour.