Happiness and Blue Moons

SO MUCH HAPPINESS

by Naomi Shihab Nye from Words under the Words (The Eighth Mountain Press)

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.

I've been keeping this poem in my pocket (aka my draft file), waiting for the perfect day in which to share it and after last night, I think today is that day. 

It's not that anything remarkable happened last night, at least nothing I can put my finger on.  I was sitting by the labyrinth during Cathedral Crossroads people watching.  Some visitors were sitting in the nave with eyes closed, letting the strains of Karen's harp and flute music float around them like snowflakes settling in their laps.  Others wandered around in quiet reverence as night pulled down shades of darkness and shifted their attention from glass to stone.  And then there were the walkers, the ones who came for the labyrinth and embarked upon its path like dancers taking the stage in a purposeful ballet.   

Later as I was walking to my car with some friends, I pointed out the almost full moon hanging high in the night sky.  Friday night is the second full moon in August, a rare occurence and the origin of  the expression "once in a blue moon."  I'm often content but happiness is something different, more rare, more fleeting, more floating as Naomi Shihab Nye observes.  And last night as I noticed all these people and then the large, lovely moon, I was  overcome with a wave of happiness definitely larger than the National Cathedral could contain.  Larger than even the day could contain as it's spilled over into this Wednesday morning and there's every indication it will continue into the afternoon. 

    

A Prayer in My Boot

A PRAYER IN MY BOOT
by Naomi Shihab Nye from 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (Harper Collins)

For the wind no one expected

For the boy who does not know the answer

For the graceful handle I found in a field
attached to nothing
pray it is universally applicable

For our tracks which disappear
the moment we leave them

For the face peering through the cafe window
as we sip our soup

For cheerful American classrooms sparkling
with crisp colored alphabets
happy cat posters
the cage of the guinea pig
the dog with division flying out of his tail
and the classrooms of our cousins
on the other side of the earth
how solemn they are
how gray or green or plain
how there is nothing dangling
nothing striped or polka-dotted or cheery
no self-portraits or visions of cupids
and in these rooms the students raise their hands
and learn the stories of the world

For library books in alphabetical order
and family businesses that failed
and the house with the boarded windows
and the gap in the middle of a sentence
and the envelope we keep mailing ourselves

For every hopeful morning given and given
and every future rough edge
and every afternoon
turning over in its sleep


Yesterday I confessed to not being able to live in the moment lately.  Naomi Shihab Nye offers a good remedy for that.  By carrying a prayer in my boot (or, ballet flat as is more often the case), ordinary encounters become opportunities to pause for a moment of mindfulness, gratitude, grace . . .

For what are you carrying a prayer in your boot today?

Famous

FAMOUS
by Naomi Shihab Nye from Under the Words:  Collected Poems (Far Corner Books)

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,

which knew it would inherit the earth

before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds

watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom

is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,

more famous than the dress shoe,

which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it

and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men

who smile while crossing streets,

sticky children in grocery lines,

famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,

but because it never forgot what it could do.

   
    Andy Warhol once remarked that, "In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes."  With the advent of the reality TV, You Tube, Twitter, and yes, even blogs, what once was hyperbole is becoming reality; although one could argue that the digital age has brought more people notoriety than fame.

    According to Merriam-Webster, famous can be defined as "widely known," or "honored for achievement."  The way the word famous is used in Naomi Shihab Nye's poem hovers between the two.  The objects are famous because they are well known but there is also a type of famous that she desires-- the famous that comes from always remembering our potential. 

    And that is an achievement that should be honored.  

   
   What have you forgotten that you can do?

The Art of Disappearing

THE ART OF DISAPPEARING

by Naomi Shihab Nye from Words Under the Words:  New and Selected Poems (The Eighth Mountain Press)

When they say Don't I know you?
say no.

When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say We should get together
say why?

It's not that you don't love them anymore.
You're trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven't seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don't start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

No exposition or reflection today, just a question . . .

What do you want to do with your time?