How to Be Happier

Composed 4/21/14
Description: (Day 21 of NaPoWriMo) Today’s poem was inspired by the Weekly Word Challenge on Susie81 Speaks. The theme was “Happy,” and, though we could write anything revolving around the theme, a suggestion that caught my attention was “write a ‘how to’ guide on how to be happy.”

This comes at a time when I am working on a statistics project in which one of the variables is happiness. Specifically, I am doing some research over whether volunteering is associated with/can lead to happiness. And, thus, this poem came to be.

I ambitiously tried a combined original and “reverse” acrostic. (The first letters spell “happiness is” the last letters, “reaching out.”) It definitely presented some challenges, but I liked the way it came out.

In your experience has giving to others brought you happiness?

How to be happier
A subject in which we popularly engage
Persistently results in a
Powerful longing for a future that deviates from chronic
Isolation and poverty – hated thirsts to quench
Needlessly these desires tempt us like the wishes of a djinni
Ending in disappointment when
Superior joy stems from giving
Simply stroking the heart of one who
Is in need of love may touch you
Surrounding you in the peace of knowing your energy was valuably put

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Winter Blessings

Composed 1/5/14
Description: In response to today’s Daily Prompt Happy Happy Joy Joy, in which we are to describe what happiness is to us. Well, right now, as snow falls thickly and quickly from the sky, I am reminded of how HAPPY this kind of weather makes me. Really. Even when I look back to one of my happiest dreams, snow is a prominent feature. And, in almost all my happiest poetry, if it’s not snow being featured, it’s nature.

Let the clouds rain down from heaven
And sugarcoat our dusty trees with blessings
So they glisten brightly, fresh, anew
And cling like front porch chimes
More beautiful than their first spring

Let thick whipped frosting
Mask the sour twinge of our mistakes
The trash, the dirt, the grime of our lives
So we can remember
That once dull scenery can change
And grandly

Let us build up wonders with heaven’s gorgeous rain
And cool our hot hands, hot heads
With pure white
And rush back to our lives and melt
Remember what it’s like
To really feel warmth