Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Happiness

THREE THINGS HAPPY PEOPLE DO By Chanda Temple

(Image by Emergency Brake via Flickr/Creative Commons.)

“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy.” 
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.” 
― Robert Frost

“What can I do with my happiness? How can I keep it, conceal it, bury it where I may never lose it? I want to kneel as it falls over me like rain, gather it up with lace and silk, and press it over myself again.” 
― Anaïs Nin, Henry & June

“The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal.” 
― C.S. Lewis

source

Midweek Motif ~ Happiness

Happiness is a balm. Some say that kindness amplifies it for giver and receiver. I've been surprised to learn this year that happiness helps when caring for friends and family in crisis. 

Happiness!

Your Challenge:  In a new poem, describe an instant and/or duration of happiness.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

A Birthday by Christina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;

Hang it with vair and purple dyes;

Carve it in doves and pomegranates,

And peacocks with a hundred eyes;

Work it in gold and silver grapes,

In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;

Because the birthday of my life

Is come, my love is come to me.

“i thank You God for most this amazing”

by e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Source

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.

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

(Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~  A Tribute Poem.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Happiness

Two film-makers speak about happiness:  

Alfred Hitchcock (above) 

and Markus Imhoof (below).

Midweek Motif ~ Happiness

Happiness grounds my life despite pain from the physical ailments of aging, from distorted relationships between homo sapiens and the rest of life, and from empathy with people facing environmental disaster, violence, starvation, disease and racial injustice.  It took a long time to find this ground, but I hope to stand on it for the rest of my life!

• Do you now or did you ever possess happiness? 
• Will you know happiness when/if you see it?

Your challenge:  Help us to see, feel or anticipate happiness through a poem in any form that makes you happy.

Three Quotes to consider:

“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, 

trees, people.  I thought, "This is what it is to be happy.” 

― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.” 
― Mark Twain

“No one asked you to be happy. Get to work.”― Colette

And One Poem:

                            Nikki-Rosa

BY NIKKI GIOVANNI

childhood remembrances are always a drag   if you’re Black
you always remember things like living in Woodlawn
with no inside toilet
and if you become famous or something
they never talk about how happy you were to have
your mother
all to yourself and
how good the water felt when you got your bath
from one of those
big tubs that folk in chicago barbecue in
. . . . 

 (Read the rest HERE at The Poetry Foundation)

#

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community.

(Next week Susan's Midweek Motif will be Weeds or Weediness.)

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Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Happiness

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?

                                  . . . .   (read the rest of this remarkable poem HERE at the Poetry Foundation.) 

~

Midweek Motif ~ Happiness

For this week's challenge I picked two poems for inspiration ~ one above by Jane Kenyon and one below by Marian Kent. 

Your Challenge is to respond to one of these poems OR to choose one or two lines for your jumping off place.  

today i'm five

BY MARIAN KENT

Today I’m five. Too young for sentimentality,
but old enough to appreciate that I’m riding
in a Volkswagen microbus sitting on a cardboard
straight chair between my folks in the front seats

singing along with "Afternoon Delight" when my dad
says She knows all the words to all the songs,
just like her Aunt and I beam with something like
five-year-old pride and never forget it ever.

And then we arrive at our new house, new house!
which by the way is a big tall two-story new house
with a railing on the front steps that’s made
for swinging, so I swing, attracting the notice

of some neighborhood girls, girls! and we girls
go running down the sidewalk across the backyards
through the lumberyard to the railroad tracks
and lob iron ore pellets just for good measure.

Then we’re all in Linda’s screened-in front porch
pumping the porch swing singing in four-part harmony
(altogether now) ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE da da da da da.
And you know, that’s still true, all you need is love.

 ~

       

Please:  
1.    Post your Happiness poem on your site, and then link it here.
2.    If you use a picture include its link.  
3.    Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 
4.    Leave a comment here.
5.    Honor  us by visiting and commenting on others' poems.

(Next week's Midweek Motif will be Social Good.)

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