April 17th Mom’s Poem a Day Challenge 2013
Write a happiness poem rich in image.
If happiness is elusive, not quite imaginable for you right now, write about its very elusiveness.
———————————————————————————
Today I was Happy
So I Made This Poem
– James Wright
As the plump squirrel scampers
Across the roof of the corncrib
The moon suddenly stands up in the darkness,
And I see that it is impossible to die.
Each moment of time is a mountain
An eagle rejoices in the oak trees of heaven,
Crying
This is what I wanted.
———————————————————————————–
Why I am Happy
– William Stafford
Now has come an easy time. I let it
roll. There is a lake somewhere
so blue and far nobody owns it.
A wind comes by and a willow listens
Gracefully.
I hear all this, every summer. I laugh
and cry for every turn of the world,
its terribly cold, innocent spin.
That lake stays blue and free;
it goes on and on.
And I know where it is.
———————————————————————————–
from Happiness
– Raymond Carver
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it
So Much Happiness (middle stanza)
Naomi Shihab Nye
—————————————————————————————–
But happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records….
—————————————————————————————–
Why
– Wendell Berry
Why all the embarrassment
about being happy?
Sometimes I’m as happy
as a sleeping dog,
and for the same reasons,
and for others.
—————————————————————————————
from Happiness
– Jane Kenyon
There’s 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
Leave a comment