
around
the rock
What is happiness?
What is happiness?
Happiness isn't always thunderous, uproarious, in-your-face, don't you get it don't you see how happy I am look at all the great things that I have here check my Facebook and then you'll know.
Sometimes it's just sitting in a chair holding someone's hand
Happiness is sometimes sadness too
Because the blue feelings help you know when you have something good
Happiness is when a tiny sun sets fire to the sky and leaves a smile beneath your lids
It's when the flowers sway in the breeze and it smells briefly for a moment like that summer day with your nana
Picking tomatoes from a vine and putting them in a paper bag
Happiness is hearing a song that reminds you of a place that helped you feel happy one time
It's petting the fluff atop your dog's brow bone and just behind his ears
The wag of a tail
Hearing your name called in your favorite voice
A warm hug from an old friend you haven't seen since the last time
And you talk like nothing's changed since the last time
And how you know it won't be for the last time
Happiness is sometimes sadness, too.
It is time passing through
Like waves of warmth from the earth's center
Sometimes happiness comes in waves.
Sometimes it falls short of happiness and we wonder what we did wrong
But happiness is funny sometimes
Like a friend that tells the same joke twice
I search for happiness
And though I've grasped it so many times
I forget what it looks like
And yearn for its warm embrace.
The Grotto
Still in the darkness of time, I
Let myself swim into the warm pools of your eyelids
Swallowed myself up in your smile
And curved through your veins so I
could feel you holding me.
Strangers
Your poetry is foreign to me
Rocks and crumbs and sharp, daggered points
You don't make sense of sadness
In a way that makes me feel like you've felt
The grinding pestle against mortar skin
Bones poking through
Jagged teeth
And unhappy souls following you
Down dark paths with no end