Happiness by Jane Kenyon

Happiness

There’s just no accounting for happiness, 

or the way it turns up like a prodigal 

who comes back to the dust at your feet 

having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive? 

You make a feast in honor of what 

was lost, and take from its place the finest 

garment, which you saved for an occasion 

you could not imagine, and you weep night and day 

to know that you were not abandoned, 

that happiness saved its most extreme form 

for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never 

knew about, who flies a single-engine plane 

onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes 

into town, and inquires at every door 

until he finds you asleep midafternoon 

as you so often are during the unmerciful 

hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell. 

It comes to the woman sweeping the street 

with a birch broom, to the child 

whose mother has passed out from drink. 

It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing 

a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker, 

and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots 

in the night. 

It even comes to the boulder 

in the perpetual shade of pine barrens, 

to rain falling on the open sea, 

to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.