Baba Yaga The Wise

Come here, little crow,
sit by the stove and unbutton your serious face.

You were not born with your jaw clenched.
You were not born counting coins,
answering messages,
holding your breath for permission.

Once, you laughed from the belly—
not the polite little cough adults call laughter,
but the thunder-laugh,
the mud-puddle laugh,
the laugh that shook the bones
and told the body,
Yes. I am still alive.

Bah.

Then came the world
with its iron shoes and paper rules.
It said, “Be useful.”
It said, “Be quiet.”
It said, “Earn your rest.”
It said, “Joy is for children,
or fools,
or people who have finished all their work.”

But listen to Baba.

Play is not the opposite of work.
Play is the old root under work.
It is how the hand learns,
how the heart softens,
how the body remembers the door out of fear.

The child stacks stones
and discovers a tower.
The woman paints scraps of paper
and discovers a soul.
The old man sings off-key
and discovers he has not died yet.

And the clown—
ah, the clown—
the holy idiot with the red nose,
the wobbling knees,
the magnificent failure—
walks into the dark world
with pockets full of bells
and says:

“Look.
Even here,
we can still love each other.”

When kings grow cruel,
when news turns black,
when beasts stomp through the village
wearing respectable hats,
the clown returns.

The fool returns.
The drum returns.
The mask returns.
The people gather
not because life is easy,
but because laughter is a rebellion
the tyrant cannot hold in his fist.

So dance badly.
Sing crooked.
Make the puppet talk.
Wear the hat with feathers.
Roll down the hill.
Flirt with your beloved.
Tell the joke.
Paint the moon blue.
Let your body shake out the sorrow.

This is not childish.

This is ancient.

Joy is not denial.
Joy is a spell.
Joy is a broom that sweeps despair from the threshold.
Joy is the soup we feed each other
when the winter is long.

Remember, little crow:

A spirit that can still play
has not been conquered.

A heart that can still laugh
has not been buried.

And a people who can still gather
in foolishness, tenderness, and delight—

well.

Those people are dangerous
to everything that feeds on fear.