The word: Happiness

Quick fun news first: my TEDx talk, linking poetry to tiny house family life, went live! I hope you enjoy.
 
Now onto this week’s stranger:
 
I was at a café writing last week’s poem when a stranger stopped next to my table, phone in hand, to show me a photo. She said, “I had to show someone: my mom just rescued this bunny!” The photo showed a tiny bunny, small enough to fit into a hand; a cat had caught it. We looked at the photo. I felt honored to be shown. My mother rescues earthworms from pavement, and my children “rescue” everything from beetles to slugs. My daughter calls this being a friend to all creatures.  

The Stranger: Jean

The Word: Happiness

The poem I wrote:

We are boxing, he and I, in a waiting room with found gloves, next to the incubating chicks with their red light. I show him what I know, how to block face and stomach. On accident he gets my gut. Sorry, Mom. I am not into violence as he is, but I love seeing his mouth open at the pure thrill, how inside his uvula is double, a heart not a boxing bag in his throat. I think: sisters get their happiness so differently. His sister says, I really like holding her, cradling a baby cousin on a cat-haired sofa while boys box, adults talk about life, liberty, pursuits.

The Challenge: Do you have a poem in you on this word? Write one here.

3 comments on “The word: Happiness

  1. Getting Happy

    I’ve seen your happiness slip away,
    and quickly,
    as if it suddenly realized
    “wrong house”.
    and we became strangers.
    So you take a step back.
    You say it’s late, look for your coat.
    I know, I know,
    you must follow happiness,
    it’s all you’ve been told to do,
    something you owe a self called yours,
    even though
    It looks more like babysitting
    when I see your worried face
    reading the map to happiness.
    self awareness
    self expression
    self acceptance
    self actualization
    self development
    self care
    self improvement
    self love
    self fulfillment
    You can’t help wondering how you wound up
    with this needy, deficient self.
    Happiness is your dogs’ wagging tail.

  2. Martin Mayland of Cedar Creek

    June 8, 2019 at 11:36 am Reply

    Perambulating with the Millennials

    It’s like, you know,
    we hold these truths to be,
    like, self-evident?
    That all men are,
    like, created equal,
    that they are endowed by their Creator with,
    like, certain unalienable Rights,
    that among these are
    Life, Liberty and the pursuit of,
    like, Happiness?
    Just sayin’ you know.
    LOL

  3. North Haven

    Today the sun is out. Elizabeth
    Bishop found happiness
    Here—of a sort—remembering
    Lowell, watching the flotilla
    Of islands anchoring in the blue
    Bay or the bay gone gray
    Or the sea of fog rising
    Against the Camden Hills,
    Smoking and drinking
    (A messy tenant, said
    Norman).

    The lupines
    In the field that reaches
    For the bay are late this year;
    They lie low in the grass
    Like unwritten poems.

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