This Day
This Day - meaning Summary
Finding Joy in Small Things
The speaker contrasts his troubled, substance-tinged past with the simple, carefree behavior of robins. Where he sees foolishness and self-pity, the birds model spontaneous joy and trust in a larger flow of time. Their playful exhortation—be happy, be silly, make this day a bough leaning over eternity—becomes a brief moral and spiritual lesson, urging the speaker toward small acts of openness and recovery grounded in everyday simplicity.
Read Complete AnalysesI feel foolish, like those silly robins jumping on the ditch boughs when I run by them. Those robins do not have the grand style of the red tailed hawk, no design, no dream, just robins acting stupid. They've never smoked cigarettes, drank whiskey, consumed drugs as I have. In their mindless fluttering about filled with nonsense, they tell me how they love the Great Spirit, scold me not to be self-pitying, to open my life and make this day a bough on a tree leaning over infinity, where eternity flows forward and with day the river runs carrying all that falls in it. Be happy Jimmy, they chirp, Jimmy, be silly, make this day a tree leaning over the river eternity and fuss about in its branches.
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