Happiness
Abandoned house roofless three walls
no floor a ruin if you think house—
to brown towhees a place to scratch
in the leaves for bugs and worms,
for the male to sing a territorial song
from what remains of the chimney—
an imagination problem like the time
friends said we must be very happy
in the beautiful house we built because
they couldn't see the ruins inside us.
Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2017 by Richard Jarrette, "Happiness," from The Beatitudes of Ekaterina, (Green Writers Press, 2017). Poem reprinted by permission of Richard Jarrette and the publisher.