On Elation

What can be said about elation
that the elated, seeking consolation
from their joy, will go to books for?
-Adrienne Su, “On Writing”

What can be said about elation
is less of joy than of vacillation

between itself and its opposite.
A strange fact of life is that

it’s a rollercoaster: if you seek
its pleasures, you’ll have also to take

its pains, the downs with the ups.
The need for consolation erupts

later, lower, past the laughter.
So why does so much “Art” try to plaster

the dark side of life on its billboards?
That is not the truth any more

than a false picture of everlasting
elation. The art we must master

is to find the joy within the sorrow,
that ever-present thread we can follow

that guides us to a state of oneness,
where opposites merge into fathomless

peace. Any state can be uplifted,
thus—and Art can be the catalyst

that carries us, reminds us in our fears:
this life is more than it appears.