Happiness


There's just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

Jane Kenyon

What I Wrote Instead of Yanking Out Fistfuls of the Bitch's Hair

Ms. ___ ____
_____ Middle School
11 ____ Road
Our Town, NY


Dear Ms. _____:

Apparently there is some confusion as to whether or not I signed a quiz my son Jack brought home from your class. That is indeed my signature on the India Quiz, although as I signed it in a rush while helping my daughter with some of her homework, the signature was perhaps not as legible as it could have been.

What I find rather disturbing is that you accused my son of forging my signature. I am perplexed as to why you would voice such an accusation against Jack before speaking with me. Is he in the habit of lying to you? If so, that is something that should have been discussed with me before now. My own experience with Jack is that while he can be forgetful and disorganized, he is generally an honest boy. I would like to discuss this with you further. If you believe my son is dishonest, so much so that you would tell him you don’t believe what his says, than the rest of his time in your classroom is going to be tense and uncomfortable for both of you. This can’t be good for his academic progress or his self-esteem.

Please call me at your earliest convenience at (631)123-1234. I am home from work every evening by 6:30 pm.

Sincerely,


Mary Jane Tenerelli

Cc: ____ _____, Principal; ____ _____, Assistant Principal

Outlook Express Needs Work

Okay, I employed the block addresses function on my Outlook Express. Lovely; people I have convinced myself no longer exist cannot email me to prove me wrong. Today I send a bunch of stuff to delete box and go back to retrieve something mistakenly sent to delete box. What do I see? Email from person who is no longer supposed to exist. Damn it Gumby! I empty box without reading offending email but still, blocked is supposed to mean blocked Outlook people! I don't want to hear from the dead, not even in my delete box.

The Weary One


The weary one, orphan
of the masses, the self,
the crushed one, the one made of concrete,
the one without a country in crowded restaurants,
he who wanted to go far away, always farther away,
didn't know what to do there, whether he wanted
or didn't want to leave or remain on the island,
the hesitant one, the hybrid, entangled in himself,
had no place here: the straight-angled stone,
the infinite look of the granite prism,
the circular solitude all banished him:
he went somewhere else with his sorrows,
he returned to the agony of his native land,
to his indecisions, of winter and summer.

Pablo Neruda

Revelations

Martin Luther King day and we are all at home. Feeling sick about the love affair that went down in flames less than a year ago. Note to self: do not read old IM's and emails from man you almost married. Especially on gray January mornings. Another note to self: do not initiate IM's with man you almost married EVEN if you shared "I will always love you" and "We Will stay in touch" vows 8 weeks earlier. You will show up in his blog as "suprising" him with an IM, as if you were Glenn Close waiting to leave a dead bunny on his stove. Final note to self, do not EVER go back to blog of new cyber love of man you almost married as you find new woman refers to herself as "Asian Love Goddess" refers to man you almost married as "Yummy" and eats lunch at Hooters. You will also find out that man you almost married is using same astrology chart wooing technique on new cyber chick. You will find that there may not have been anything extraordinary about what you had after all. This will hurt like hell. And make you feel like an ass.

Equinox

by Joy Harjo


I must keep from breaking into the story by force
for if I do I will find myself with a war club in my hand
and the smoke of grief staggering toward the sun,
your nation dead beside you.

I keep walking away though it has been an eternity
and from each drop of blood
springs up sons and daughters, trees,
a mountain of sorrows, of songs.

I tell you this from the dusk of a small city in the north
not far from the birthplace of cars and industry.
Geese are returning to mate and crocuses have
broken through the frozen earth.

Soon they will come for me and I will make my stand
before the jury of destiny. Yes, I will answer in the clatter
of the new world, I have broken my addiction to war
and desire. Yes, I will reply, I have buried the dead

and made songs of the blood, the marrow.

Family Court and Epiphany

Did nothing but lay on the couch and watch TV last night. Kids with their freak father. Switched schizophrenically between Napoleon Dynamite and Bridget Jones Diary. This has been a grind-me-into-the-ground kind of week. Family court on Thursday was Chrissy's lucky day. Two words to describe the hearing: absolution and reduction. At the expense of my children. Back to work after the hearing where I reviewed case files like a machine all afternoon. Cried all the way home in the car swearing and cursing and assuring god that I was all done and could not live this life I'd created for myself (images of washing down the contents of my valium bottle with cold milk danced in my head). The maniac of Vets Highway. Exhausted and cried out by the time I got home. Locked myself in computer room and sent out resumes like a machine. Death is not an option and I will make things better for us.


Coming Up For Air

The dive down is done.
My face breaks
The greeny surface
Into the sun;
Sweet, sweet
Surprise.
The mile long murk
Under the sea
No longer filters
My blue ether.
Up here I swear
I’m free of the deep.
It is not lapping
At my bleached heels;
Not whispering
The valentine promise
Of no place left
To fall.

M.J. Tenerelli

Strange Light

Driving through fields and fields of identical white gravestones today looking for a funeral we were late for. The Long Island National cemetery for Veterans was eerie in a very strange January light. Spring weather and late fall afternoon sun at 11:00 a.m. Heavy sick feeling driving through football fields of dead soldiers. When I was a kid afternoon sunlight would sometimes make me soul sick, for lack of a better term. Today it happened again and I was not happy to make its reacquaintance.

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
'Tis the seal, despair,-
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, 't is like the distance
On the look of death.

by Emily Dickinson