{"id":238497,"date":"2023-07-03T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=238497"},"modified":"2023-07-03T04:49:35","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T03:49:35","slug":"the-work-of-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/07\/the-work-of-happiness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Work of Happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"

May Sarton, who has written so movingly about Unhappiness and Its Cure<\/a>, explores in this poem \u201cThe Work of Happiness.\u201d (<\/em>Collected Poems: 1930\u20131993 <\/strong><\/a>public library<\/a>)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I thought of happiness, how it is woven
\nOut of the silence in the empty house each day
\nAnd how it is not sudden and it is not given
\nBut is creation itself like the growth of a tree.
\nNo one has seen it happen, but inside the bark
\nAnother circle is growing in the expanding ring.
\nNo one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,
\nBut the tree is lifted by this inward work
\nAnd its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.<\/p>\n

So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours
\nAnd strikes its roots deep in the house alone:
\nThe old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,
\nWhite curtains softly and continually blown
\nAs the free air moves quietly about the room;
\nA shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall \u2014
\nThese are the dear familiar gods of home,
\nAnd here the work of faith can best be done,
\nThe growing tree is green and musical.<\/p>\n

For what is happiness but growth in peace,
\nThe timeless sense of time when furniture
\nHas stood a life\u2019s span in a single place,
\nAnd as the air moves, so the old dreams stir
\nThe shining leaves of present happiness?
\nNo one has heard thought or listened to a mind,
\nBut where people have lived in inwardness
\nThe air is charged with blessing and does bless;
\nWindows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.<\/p>\n

_________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>May Sarton was the pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton (3 May 1912 \u2013 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 \u2018lesbian writer\u2019, preferring to convey the universality of human love.<\/em> — Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May Sarton, who has written so movingly about Unhappiness and Its Cure, explores in this poem \u201cThe Work of Happiness.\u201d (Collected Poems: 1930\u20131993 public library)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":115837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[868],"class_list":["post-238497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-format","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238499,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238497\/revisions\/238499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}