A Gathering of Poetry: December 2024

It's the third Thursday of the month so I'd like to welcome you to A Gathering of Poetry.

I've written several times here about how I worry about finding the "perfect" poem to share here. But it seems like the best poem often just presents itself. This month's poem was a present from Juliann, who sent me this one after I wrote about my blanket plan coming unraveled. I think it's wonderful and definitely want to share this one with all of you.

 

The Work of Happiness

by May Sarton

I thought of happiness, how it is woven

Out of the silence in the empty house each day

And how it is not sudden and it is not given

But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.

No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark

Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.

No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,

But the tree is lifted by this inward work

And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.

So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours

And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:

The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,

White curtains softly and continually blown

As the free air moves quietly about the room;

A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall—

These are the dear familiar gods of home,

And here the work of faith can best be done,

The growing tree is green and musical.

For what is happiness but growth in peace,

The timeless sense of time when furniture

Has stood a life's span in a single place,

And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir

The shining leaves of present happiness?

No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,

But where people have lived in inwardness

The air is charged with blessing and does bless;

Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.

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Sarton, May. "The Work of Happiness". Collected Poems 1930-1993.1993: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc..

You can read more about May Sarton here. 

And a big thank you to Juliann!

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