There's just no accounting for happiness, <br />or the way it turns up like a prodigal <br />who comes back to the dust at your feet <br />having squandered a fortune far away. <br /> <br />And how can you not forgive? <br />You make a feast in honor of what <br />was lost, and take from its place the finest <br />garment, which you saved for an occasion <br />you could not imagine, and you weep night and day <br />to know that you were not abandoned, <br />that happiness saved its most extreme form <br />for you alone. <br /> <br />No, happiness is the uncle you never <br />knew about, who flies a single-engine plane <br />onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes <br />into town, and inquires at every door <br />until he finds you asleep midafternoon <br />as you so often are during the unmerciful <br />hours of your despair. <br /> <br />It comes to the monk in his cell. <br />It comes to the woman sweeping the street <br />with a birch broom, to the child <br />whose mother has passed out from drink. <br />It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing <br />a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker, <br />and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots <br />in the night. <br />It even comes to the boulder <br />in the perpetual shade of pine barrens, <br />to rain falling on the open sea, <br />to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.<br /><br />Jane Kenyon<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/happiness-2/
