Poetry Friday: Happiness

I did well the first week of October with my posting, but this past week was super-busy, with the end of first quarter arriving today. I did get everything graded (except for a quiz that I'm giving today and still hoping to get posted before I go home -- we'll see how that goes).

I read this article this morning about comparative happiness across international boundaries. I've blogged about this idea before (here and here, for example). I'm fascinated by efforts to compare people's levels of happiness. As the article in the first link points out, the results vary wildly according to the kinds of questions researchers ask. The researchers discussed here got very different answers based on whether they looked at "Life Satisfaction" or "Positive Feelings." They did find that Haiti is the second most unhappy country in the world, based on life satisfaction.

I will be looking into this more and following some of the links, and maybe posting again, but for Poetry Friday today I want to share a poem that I wrote a few months ago called "Happiness."




Happiness

Feelings are the caboose,
They told us in Sunday school.
Faith is the engine,
And sometimes the emotions will follow,
But if they don't, oh well.
If the caboose gets buried by an avalanche
On the way through the mountain pass,
So be it.
At least you know what you believe.

But sometimes
Happiness comes as a gift
And it's no caboose, but a whole long train,
The kind that keeps you waiting
At the railroad crossing
For half an hour,
Listening to the whistle
And counting the cars as they go by,
Marveling at just how many of them there are.

by Ruth, from www.thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com


Here's today's Poetry Friday roundup.