What is joy? Is it uplifting? Inviting? Sorrowful, longing? Is it what novelist C. S. Lewis posited: the opening of consciousness that makes us more robust and astute? Is it an explosion of our most precious creativity, the wild we keep inside, as collage artist Mark Hearld explores in his wide-ranging artistry?

What about joy as a human right? An intrinsic thing no one can bestow, no one can take - joy is tapping into the wild within, a thing we hold despite all forces that would suppress it. J. Drew Lanham (Born in 1965) claims joy is an immediate "paradise to claim." In Lanham's poem "Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves", he flexes our heart muscles to the undeniable truth about joy, it is here, now, within and without. Joy is ours, eternally.

Be advised... sometimes there is sadness, or anger within the words. It is the life I lead, the Black skin I'm happily in, the love I try to give. Wildness is at the center of my joy. The tame world didn't give it to me, and I won't let that world take it away.

Cosmic background radiation of trees. Photograph by Ellen Vrana.

The wildness of joy is connected to our desire to be substantially, fully ourselves. Lanham writes, "We all seek our who-ness in the midst of change that operates at several orders of magnitude." How to define ourselves, celebrate ourselves in a world that has named us, claimed us, and written our stories (read how freed slave Frederick Douglass was denied the most basic privilege of self-knowledge).

Wrestling with this huge, abundant desire to be connected to the community around us, yet true to our feelings of justice and what can be, that's the fight Lanham champions.

Lanham's poetry (frequently set to the heart-song of birds) supplements his full-time work teaching students wildlife studies and resource management. His heart is richly entwined in witnessing, protecting, and inhaling nature.

"Starling murmuration" paint on canvas, 2020. By North Yorkshire artist Ann Pease. "I work to capture the organic nature of the shapes birds make while flocking together."

In a world of increasing multi-magnitude change, Lanham steps up to address injustice and how it affects this nature-loving self: "As injustice and inhumanity rule so much," Lanham continues, "I think some on problems, but feel more on the possibility. That's where the joy comes in, and I hold tightly to it." Read this excerpt from Lanham's wild shout of joy:

Joy is the Justice (We Give Ourselves)

Joy is the justice
we give ourselves.
It is Maya’s caged bird
sung free past the prison bars,
holding spirits bound—
without due process,
without just cause.
 
Joy is the steady run stream,
rights sprung up
through moss-soft ground—
water seeping sweet,
equality made clear
from sea
to shining sea,
north to south,
west to east.

...

Joy is the silent spring,
unquiet.
Rachel’s world not come to pass.
The season
dripping ripe full
of wood thrush song.
 
Joy is all the Black birds,
flocked together,
too many to count,
too many to name,
every one different
from the next,
swirling in singularity
across amber-purpled sky.
 
Joy is being loved
up close
for who we are.

...

Joy is the gift,
just desserts,
what we deserve
without asking
or constant demands—
the comfort that comes
when no one else
really cares.
 
Joy is the reward,
the salary already earned—
back pay
with four centuries’ interest
compounded daily.
At least eighty acres—
and two mules.
 
Joy is the day off,
just because.

...

Joy is what was meant to be.
The mystery of impossibility happening.
The assurance of uncertainty.
Joy is my seeking.
Your being.
It is mine for the taking.
Ours to share.
More than enough to go around,
when it seems nowhere to be found.
Have yourself a heapin’ serving.
Have seconds. Or thirds.
‘Cause
joy is the justice
we must give ourselves.

Lanham admits he sets his heart to birdsong. There is such a natural connection between this wisdom and support for all those seeking the wilderness of joy in Joy is the Justice We Give Ourselves and Maya Angelou's resounding 1969 biography that cracked the silence around what it was like to be a young, Black woman in America. Both authors sing of freedom, flight, and bird song as a metaphor for everything right, for everything that should be.