I Found Happiness

I've always considered myself as a "non-poetry" person. I simply didn't like poetry. And why? It was just too convoluted in getting across a message. I mean, just say it directly like a good New Englander.

Then when I turned 40 years old a decade ago, I asked friends to give me a copy of their favorite book as a birthday present. That year I got to read genre of books that I would have never chosen to read such as Science Fiction or British humor. There were even some classics thrown in for good measure.  But there was one book that I got that when I ripped off the wrapping paper, I groaned inside and thought, "OMG, a book of poetry?" Argh.

For awhile I let the book sit there as it waited its turn to be read. It waited and waited. It wasn't until my roommate who told me what a friend told her, "The reason you don't like poetry is that you haven't found your poet."

My poet. Hmmm...an interesting thought that I would have a poet for me.

When I finally cracked open that slim book of poetry, I came across a poem called "So Much Happiness." When I finished reading it, I realized that indeed I have found my poet - Naomi Shihab Nye.

Here it is:

So Much Happiness
It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records…..

Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

(Years later I had the honor of introducing Ms. Nye as "my poet" to an audience of over a thousand students. It was a thrilling moment to meet and introduce my poet!)