On Being Happy
by Tracy Tupman
The Way to be Happy
is distilling happiness from little things
said he, and paused for emphasis,
like a bullfrog after a particularly mellifluous croak.
Not wanting to ruin a first date,
I didn’t mention that ‘distilling’ was pretentious
and clashed with his infinitive ‘to be’
but politely said Like what.
He remarked Oh the sun on this
and the scent of that.
And while I like warm sun on a carpet
and know cut grass has that smell,
and do not mind territorial birdsong,
nor fire chewing wood in the cold,
nor color, nor most things quotidian,
he is wrong. In point of fact,
I will be most happy when I see at last
the really big stuff: whole cities dropped into the sea
the Hero waiting, wreathed in cloud
and many nations rising from the dead.
this is so true, Tupman! I get tired of these definitions of happiness as well. I was a bit thrown by your use of the word "stuff" in the last stanza - tho interestingly conversational, maybe a bit TOO much?
ReplyDeleteI actually really liked the use of the word stuff. I feel like it's being used mockingly towards her date and supposed to be making him seem trite?
ReplyDeleteYeah SP I thought you'd agree! I worried about that line a bit, but I was going for what Gus said -- I think the guy would try and use a really fancy word that doesn't actually mean anything. Along the same lines, I think she used "quotidian" ironically....
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