Happiness

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?

You make a feast in honor of what

was lost, and take from its place the finest

garment, which you saved for an occasion

you could not imagine, and you weep night and day

to know that you were not abandoned,

that happiness saved its most extreme form

for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never

knew about, who flies a single-engine plane

onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes

into town, and inquires at every door

until he finds you asleep midafternoon

as you so often are during the unmerciful

hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.

It comes to the woman sweeping the street

with a birch broom, to the child

whose mother has passed out from drink.

It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing

a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,

and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots

in the night.

It even comes to the boulder

in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,

to rain falling on the open sea,

to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

One new perception,
one fresh thought,
one act of surrender,
one change of heart,
one leap of faith,
can change your life forever.

 
- Robert Holden

The Revision By Aaron Bulman (excerpt)

I still liked anyothertime,anyotherplace. 

which means most
of my life, but it was now,
here, so I felt my life becoming sad.
and I was thinking this
too shall pass into later.
somewherelse. but I was getting sadder.
so I saw a new now and a new here, later.
and this now and this here
would be excluded from anyothertime
anyotherplace. later.

The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac (3) By Mary Oliver

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.

so why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats*,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.

The Frog

BY HILAIRE BELLOC

Be kind and tender to the Frog,

   And do not call him names,

As ‘Slimy skin,’ or ‘Polly-wog,’

   Or likewise ‘Ugly James,’

Or ‘Gape-a-grin,’ or ‘Toad-gone-wrong,’   

   Or ‘Billy Bandy-knees’:

The Frog is justly sensitive

   To epithets like these.

No animal will more repay

   A treatment kind and fair;

At least so lonely people say

Who keep a frog (and, by the way,   

They are extremely rare).

The Yak

BY HILAIRE BELLOC

As a friend to the children commend me the Yak.   

   You will find it exactly the thing:

It will carry and fetch, you can ride on its back,   

   Or lead it about with a string.

The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Thibet   

   (A desolate region of snow)

Has for centuries made it a nursery pet,   

   And surely the Tartar should know!

Then tell your papa where the Yak can be got,   

   And if he is awfully rich

He will buy you the creature—or else he will not.

   (I cannot be positive which.)

Some See Red Over The Color Red

By Charles Osgood

The custom has been for schoolteachers to correct student papers in red, to point out mistakes with red pencil or red ink. But In many schools now, we're told teachers are being told not to mark papers with red ink because red upsets the children. Red is too stressful too "in your face." Joseph Foriska, the principal of Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School in Pittsburgh, for example has instructed his teachers to grade with colors featuring more ''pleasant feeling tones." so that their instructional messages do not come across and derogatory or demeaning.

In many schools today it's said

teachers should not grade in red.

Red is too negative they say.

In the context of today

with too much student stress resulting

to them red seems downright insulting.

And we don't want their feelings hurt

with red as in a "red alert"

"High risk of terrorist attack."

The kids might be taken aback.

What color then should teachers use?

Purple is now what many choose

or blue. Some educators think

Turquoise, Fuchsia, sky blue, pink.

Almost anything instead

of that old nasty color red.

Red ink now means losing money,

a prospect no one thinks is funny.

They say it has nothing to do

with politics, red states or blue.

But some, I'm sure, will now suspect

that what's politically correct

has some political content,

though they deny that's what is meant.

But simply to remove the dread.

They say some people have of red.

Do you recall when it was said

in the cold war “Better dead than red?

Roses are red, violets are blue

I don't fear roses though, do you?”