This sense of joy can occur at any age. Suddenly, often for no discernible reason, we are bathed in a feeling of inextricable well-being. We are at one with creation; all’s right with the world.
Memories of these moments of grace stay with us throughout our lives. Weightless in themselves, they nevertheless provide a counterweight to the everyday. However, the real magic occurs when it is everyday life itself that occasions this joyfulness.
WHY
Why all the embarrassment
about being happy?
Sometimes I’m as happy
as a sleeping dog,
and for the same reasons,
and for others.
Wendell Berry
WORDS FROM THE FRONT
We don’t look as young
as we used to
except in dim light
especially in
the soft warmth of candlelight
when we say
in all sincerity
You’re so cute
and
You’re my cutie.
Imagine
two old people
behaving like this.
It’s enough
to make you happy.
Ron Padgett
ONE OF THE BUTTERFLIES
The trouble with pleasure is the timing
it can overtake me without warning
and be gone before I know it is here
it can stand facing me unrecognized
while I am remembering somewhere else
in another age or someone not seen
for years and never to be seen again
in this world and it seems I cherish
only now a joy I was not aware of
when it was here although it remains
out of reach and will not be caught or named
or called back and if I could make it stay
as I want to it would turn into pain
W. S. Merwin
JOY
You must love the crust of the earth
on which you dwell. You must be
able to extract nutriment out of a
sandheap. You must have so good
an appetite as this, else you will
live in vain.
Thoreau
Joy, the, “well… joyfulness of
joy”—“many years
I had known it,” the woman of eighty
said, “only remembered, till now.”
Traherne
in dark fields.
On Tremont Street,
on the Common, a raw dusk, Emerson
“glad to the brink of fear.”
It is objective,
stands founded, a roofed gateway;
we cloud-wander
away from it, stumble
again towards it not seeing it,
enter cast-down, discover ourselves
“in joy” as “in love.”
Denise Levertov
A state of joy can be as vibrant as one of love and occur just as unexpectedly.
Thomas Traherne was a seventeenth-century English poet whose writings were suffused with spirituality.
“Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.” From Emerson’s essay “Nature.”
SONNET
Caught—the bubble
in the spirit-level,
a creature divided;
and the compass needle
wobbling and wavering,
undecided.
Freed—the broken
thermometer’s mercury
running away;
and the rainbow-bird
from the narrow bevel
of the empty mirror,
flying wherever
it feels like, gay!
Elizabeth Bishop
This is the last, or nearly last, poem Bishop wrote, shortly before her death. Here she amuses herself by cutting her word count drastically, allowing her poem to “run away” free, like the liberated mercury, and fly like a bird to wherever it wishes.
ANY MORNING
Just lying on the couch and being happy.
Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.
Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has
so much to do in the world.
People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can’t
monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.
When dawn flows over the hedge you can
get up and act busy.
Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven
left lying around, can be picked up and saved.
People won’t even see that you have them,
they are so light and easy to hide.
Later in the day you can act like the others.
You can shake your head. You can frown.
William Stafford
GOOD
I bet
you’ll see me in the park
strolling with a cane,
a bit wobbly now and then
which is good, for
why should ground be taken
for granted or trees?
I like
to lean my back against
a tamarack—straight in its majesty.
I swear I hear it hum
which is very good for
me since I need melodies
to remind me to hold up
and lean
into whatever is close
and near and could be dear
which is exceedingly good
to my mind, and could be
to yours. I know advice is
useless, but an example is
another thing.
I sit on a bench,
eat a sandwich, a bit mushed
in the pocket but tasty still
which is good since the truth is
that savoring is a necessity.
So I eat and tap my old feet
against
the pavement
and breathe which is good
for just about everything.
Then home like a horse
to its stable, recognizing
my small place in the world
there to be
with familiar things and sense
where I’ve landed for now, which is
better than good since it is
neither good nor bad—
but a joy if you know what I mean.
No comparison.
Gunilla Norris
FROM BLOSSOMS
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.
From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes this familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.
O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.
There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
Li-Young Lee
To savor fully the “round jubilance of peach”—with all that has made it what it is—is to savor creation.
WHAT ARE YEARS?
What is our innocence,
what is our guilt? All are
naked, no
ne is safe. And whence
is courage: the unanswered question,
the resolute doubt,—
dumbly calling, deafly listening—that
in misfortune, even death,
encourages others
and in its defeat, stirs
the soul to be strong? He
sees deep and is glad, who
accedes to mortality
and in his imprisonment rises
upon himself as
the sea in a chasm, struggling to be
free and unable to be,
in its surrendering
finds its continuing.
So he who strongly feels,
behaves. The very bird,
grown taller as he sings, steels
his form straight up. Though he is captive,
his mighty singing
says, satisfaction is a lowly
thing, how pure a thing is joy.
This is mortality,
This is eternity.
Marianne Moore
TODAY
If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting
into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.
Billy Collins
THE BLESSING OF THE OLD WOMAN, THE TULIP, AND THE DOG
To be blessed
said the old woman
is to live and work
so hard
God’s love
washes right through you
like milk through a cow
To be blessed
said the dark red tulip
is to knock their eyes out
with the slug of lust
implied by
your up-ended skirt
To be blessed
said the dog
is to have a pinch
of God
inside you
and all the other
dogs can smell it
Alicia Ostriker
11
“TOWARD WHAT UNDREAMT CONDITION”
Despite all our puzzling and pondering, the mystery of life remains. But isn’t this very quality of strangeness and impenetrability what gives life so much of its interest and savor? No matter how much we learn, there is always more to discover; no matter how far we have come, there is always farther to go.
We are each a small part of the great chain of being, and we leave this world to make way for the next links in the chain. Looked at in this way, death becomes a natural part of life, the final stage of our life here on earth but possibly the first stage of something as yet unknown. Who is to say? Each of us is free to make up our own mind.
From the very beginning of literature, poets have offered their individual views on this supreme mystery. Some of them follow.
THIS WORLD IS NOT CONCLUSION
This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond–
Invisible, as Music–
But positive, as Sound–
It beckons, and it baffles–
Philosophy–don’t know–
And through a Riddle, at the last–
Sagacity, must go–
To guess it, puzzles scholars–
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown–
Faith slips–and laughs, and rallies–
Blushes, if any see–
Plucks at a twig of Evidence–
And asks a Vane, the way–
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit–
Strong Hallelujahs roll–
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul–
Emily Dickinson
Here Dickinson grapples once again with the ultimate mystery of existence. While she continued to question conventional religious belief throughout her life, she never relinquished her spiritual search.
WEAN YOURSELF
Little by little, wean yourself.
This is the gist of what I have to say.
From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood,
move to an infant drinking milk,
to a child on solid food,
to a searcher after wisdom,
to a hunter of more invisible game.
Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo.
You might say, “The world outside is vast and intricate.
There are wheatfields and mountain passes, and orchards in bloom.
At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight
You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up
in the dark with eyes closed.
Listen to the answer.
There is no “other world.”
I only know what I’ve experienced.
You must be hallucinating.
Mathnawi, III, 49–6
Jalal al-Din Rumi
(translated from the Persian by Coleman Barks)
FINAL NOTATIONS
it will not be simple, it will not be long
it will take little time, it will take all your thought
it will take all your heart, it will take all your breath
it will be short, it will not be simple
it will touch through your ribs, it will take all your heart
it will not be long, it will occupy all your thought
as a city is occupied, as a bed is occupied
it will take all your flesh, it will not be simple
You are coming into us who cannot withstand you
you are coming into us who never wanted to withstand you
you are taking parts of us into places never planned
you are going far away with pieces of our lives
it will be short, it will take all your breath
it will not be simple, it will become your will
Adrienne Rich
THE WINDOW
A storm blew in last night and knocked out
the electricity. When I looked
through the window, the trees were translucent.
Bent and covered with rime. A vast calm
lay over the countryside.
I knew better. But at that moment
I felt I’d never in my life made any
false promises, not committed
so much as one indecent act. My thoughts
were virtuous. Later on that morning,
of course, electricity was restored.
The sun moved from behind the clouds,
melting the hoarfrost.
And things stood as they had before.
Raymond Carver
THE NIGHT MIGRATIONS
This is the moment when you see again
the red berries of the mountain ash
and in the dark sky
the birds’ night migrations.
It grieves me to think
the dead won’t see them—
these things we depend on,
they disappear.
What will the soul do for solace then?
I tell myself maybe it won’t need
these pleasures anymore;
maybe just not being is simply enough,
hard as that is to imagine.
Louise
Glück
SAILING TO BYZANTIUM
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
W. B. Yeats
Once again, Yeats bemoans old age, but out of his despair he fashions one of his most glorious poems.
Byzantium, an ancient city of Thrace, was renamed Constantinople after the Roman emperor Constantine I. It is the site of the modern city of Istanbul, Turkey. During Constantine’s reign, it was the capital of the Roman Empire and known for its great power and wealth. In a BBC radio broadcast in 1931 Yeats explained his choice of Byzantium as the central symbol of this poem: “I am trying to write about the state of my soul.… Byzantium was the centre of European civilization and the source of its spiritual philosophy, so I symbolize the search for the spiritual life by a journey to that city.”