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.
June 7, 2019 at 1:34 pm
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.
June 8, 2019 at 11:36 am
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
June 10, 2019 at 3:23 pm
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.