Composed: 7/15/13
Description: I wrote this in response to We Drink Because We’re Poets’ Prompt “Happiness.” The prompt challenged us to write a poem about what makes us happy; so naturally, I immediately scribbled down perhaps the most depressing verse ever. Ha, but it does get better, I promise!
True happiness?
How can one know?
I’ve rarely seen that thing
The glow
Not here
Not on this stone cold earth
We are doomed to sorrow
The moment of birth
True happiness?
I’ve just seen a gleam
In a mother’s bright eyes
A toddler’s glad scream
And then in a book
That speaks of a man
Who loves me so much
When no one possibly can
True happiness?
No, not here
There’s too much sadness
Shame and fear
But the book is a key
To a skyward bridge
True joy awaits
Just beyond the cloud’s ridge
And that joy I can taste
When the clouds rain down
And the man holds my hand
So I will not drown
Scraps of Paper 
That is a lovely poem.
Perhaps on this earth we cannot find true happiness, but we can find true joy – which is even richer and more meaningful, for it can be discovered through some of the most painful moments of life when happiness cannot be.
God bless you.
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As promised, it does get happier. But, it the happiness you see in others. It sounds like you are waiting for eternal happiness. Psalm 139 makes me happy. Ecclesiastes is full of happiness, although it seems otherwise at first glance. I am not an optimist. I don’t think of myself as a particularly happy person, but contentment can be found, and that is more satisfying than even happiness.
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