on
Happiness
by Judith Viorst
~
Happiness
Is a clean bill of health from the doctor,
And the kids shouldn’t move back home for
more than a year,
And not being audited, overdrawn, in Wilkes-Barre,
in a lawsuit or in traction.
Happiness
Is falling asleep without Valium,
And having two breasts to put in my brassiere,
And not (yet) needing to get my blood pressure lowered,
my eyelids raised or a second opinion.
And on Saturday nights
When my husband and I have rented
Something with Fred Astaire for the VCR,
And we’re sitting around in our robes discussing,
The state of the world, back exercises, our Keoghs,
And whether to fix the transmission or buy a new car,
And we’re eating a pint of rum-raisin ice cream
on the grounds that
Tomorrow we’re starting a diet of fish, fruit and grain,
And my dad’s in Miami dating a very nice widow,
And no one we love is in serious trouble or pain,
And our bringing-up-baby days are far behind us,
But our senior-citizen days have not begun,
It’s not what I called happiness
When I was twenty-one,
But it’s turning out to be
What happiness is.
Happiness
by Louise Gluck
~
A man and a woman lie on a white bed.
It is morning. I think
Soon they will waken.
On the bedside table is a vase
of lilies; sunlight
pools in their throats.
I watch him turn to her
as though to speak her name
but silently, deep in her mouth–
At the window ledge,
once, twice,
a bird calls.
And then she stirs; her body
fills with his breath.
I open my eyes; you are watching me.
Almost over this room
the sun is gliding.
Look at your face, you say,
holding your own close to me
to make a mirror.
How calm you are. And the burning wheel
passes gently over us.
Happiness
by Dr. Tulsi Hanumanthu
~
Happiness perhaps once had features
Of a single, compact whole,
But countless are the craving creatures
Praying God some bliss to dole.
He therefore must have sadly shattered
Happiness into many a bit
And had the pieces widely scattered
To give all eyes a glimpse of it.
So, those who wish to own a share
Should not think it strain or stress
To search around, with utmost care,
Some dazzling fragments to possess.
A particle here, a particle there,
To your happy lot may fall;
Not any time, not anywhere,
can you ever find them all.
However long, however far-
Spreading your quest may be,
Too many are, too tiny are
The splinters all for you to see.
In common can you best enjoy
Whatever happiness comes your way.
With others if you share your joy,
It well may stage a longer stay.
Give your neighbour just a half
And see your pleasure growig double:
Make your neighbour smile or laugh;
You yourself with glee will bubble.
Happiness
by Stevie Smith
~
Happiness is silent, or speaks equivocally for friends,
Grief is explicit and her song never ends,
Happiness is like England, and will not state a case,
Grief, like Guilt, rushes in and talks apace.
Happiness
by Jane Kenyon
~
There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.
And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.
No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.
It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.
Source: Poemhunter
