The Work of Happiness
POETRY FORMAT, 3 Jul 2023
May Sarton – TRANSCEND Media Service
May Sarton, who has written so movingly about Unhappiness and Its Cure, explores in this poem “The Work of Happiness.” (Collected Poems: 1930–1993 public library)
I thought of happiness, how it is woven
Out of the silence in the empty house each day
And how it is not sudden and it is not given
But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.
No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark
Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.
No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,
But the tree is lifted by this inward work
And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.
So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours
And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:
The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,
White curtains softly and continually blown
As the free air moves quietly about the room;
A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall —
These are the dear familiar gods of home,
And here the work of faith can best be done,
The growing tree is green and musical.
For what is happiness but growth in peace,
The timeless sense of time when furniture
Has stood a life’s span in a single place,
And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir
The shining leaves of present happiness?
No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,
But where people have lived in inwardness
The air is charged with blessing and does bless;
Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.
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May Sarton was the pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton (3 May 1912 – 16 Jul 1995), a Belgian-American novelist, poet, and memoirist. Although her best work is strongly personalized with erotic female imagery, she resisted the label of ‘lesbian writer’, preferring to convey the universality of human love. — Wikipedia
Tags: Poetry
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 3 Jul 2023.
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