S is for Salubrious

Good Words Alphabetically: S is for Salubrious

I KNOW you didn’t see this one coming, did you?

My husband used to say “And how are you this lugubrious day?” Now that sounds like it must mean “this FINE day”, but it seemed wrong to me, so I double checked one day. Perhaps he’d started saying it as his mind was beginning to go, because he didn’t often use words incorrectly. At any rate, when faced with the reality of its meaning, he never said it again.

When I saw salubrious today, I wish I’d given him this option. I think this is what he was going for and why what he said seemed vaguely correct.

 

Salubrious means favorable to or promoting good health, healthful.
Lagubrious has a much different meaning: melancholy, sad, mournful.

 

Little Changes

Even on sad, dreary days

weighty and lugubrious

I want to find the shimmery

glowing bits salubrious.

When things are not the happiest

And nimbus heavy looms

There’s either still or soon to be

Some shaft that blinds the gloom.

Bits of stars between the clouds

Geese nesting murmuring low

Raindrops glistening on a bud

Or tree leaves’ whispery show.

Look beyond lugubrious

And hum a song or two

Salubrious days will find their way

To join in tunes with you.

Every day and all the ways

Breathe deeply, look for sweet

It matters not the harshest path

Nor weather that you meet.

It’s what you make of circumstance

Of heavy fog you see

Is its intent to cloud the mind

Or is it brewing tea?

By Donna JT Smith ©️2024