I’ve been thinking about happiness lately – why it comes so easily for some people and why it seems to elude others. These two are naturals. Their announcement this week fills us with joy!Â
Scott and Laura celebrating on a mountain top
I am one of five siblings. Between us, we have a dozen children. FIVE of them have announced engagements in recent months/weeks!
Is this amazing?? Each one of us has a son or daughter who will be getting married sometime in the next 12 months. I am not one normally prone to FOMO (fear of missing out), but this was absolutely a club I wanted in on!
Today, our son proposed to his partner and soulmate. Happiness is!
This week The Nevermores wrote golden shovel poems inspired by May Sarton’s “The Work of Happiness.”
I thought of happiness, how it is woven
Out of the silence in the empty house each day
And how it is not sudden and it is not given
But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.
We used the final line as the strike line:
Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.
©2023, Patricia J. Franz
Happiness Is
I will live anywhere, but give me windows
that waken me with a chickadee’s song, that look
upon firs kissed by spring, that beckon “Come out!”
Let me greet morning’s dew glistening on
pane and pine; offer a reverent nod to mountains
robed in royal fur – a murmur of miracles and
morning prayer. I will live anywhere, but give me the
rustle of limbs unbared –assurance these walls
are not meant to hold me in, are
waiting to share their gift-in-kind.
It’s #PoetryFriday!Â
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Patricia Franz is a kidlit writer and published poet. She believes children, dogs, and sourdough have a lot to teach us about life, joy, and wonder. She has raised two boys, four dogs, and holds a master’s degree in Theology with a focus on children’s spirituality. Patricia, her husband, her Bernese Mountain dog, Bonny, and her sourdough starter split their time between the Arizona desert and the Sierra Nevada mountains. 
Love the vulnerability giving into joy can be… Not that the other stories in our lives go away, but that we choose to look around and find beauty and hope. Plus, wonderful sounds echo the soundscape in nature in your poem!
Joy all around!
Congratulations on your son’s engagement and all the family joy! Nothing better than wakening with chickadee’s song, glistening dew, and the rustle of limbs.
I’m ever amazed at the joy these mornings bring.
Wow! Congrats to all! Me thinks you’re going to be going to a LOT of weddings in the near future, LOL. And also a lovely poem!
Yes, we are up to 7 beginning this October!
So happy for you and your family! Congratulations!
Thank you, Marcie!
Happiness it seems comes in battlions too, Patricia. May such great times continue. Both poems spoke to me of happiness, each in their own way. Simple pleasures, simple joys across a day. Here’s to happiness!
Yes, battalions! Great word!
So excited to hear your news, Patricia! Congratulations. And lovely to read your poem again.
And I’m grateful to share it again!
I love how you chose a repeated line of “I will live anywhere…” So much sense of place in this poem along with the beautiful striking line. Thanks for sharing May Sarton’s poem. I printed it and will tuck it into my notebook. I need to focus on happiness in what my husband has now dubbed as “the summer of emotions.” More about that later…
I’m glad the poem might be a point of rest and reflection for you, Margaret.
Your golden shovel is a masterpiece! I love them best when they don’t just repeat the striking line’s meaning, but rather expand it into new territory…like yours did. Brava!
Poetic surprise!
What a great golden shovel! I’m so glad you shared the inspiring poem (one to read again and again for sure!) and love how you took that strike line and then shared your own recipe for happiness. You’ve woven such beautiful sounds and imagery throughout this poem. Gorgeous!
Thank you for the kind words.
Congratulations on this newest engagement, Patricia, and for all the family special days to come. I love Sarton’s poem and that you all chose that final line for your own inspiration. And I know from your posts how much you love the outdoors, that you live smack in the middle of your poem, too! What struck me personally is “but give me windows” & I realized how fast in the mornings I open all the shades to look out, to “see” the birds and trees, for me, people already walking by with their dogs, even pre-dawn. Thanks for a lovely post!
“If you’re lucky enough to live in the mountains, you’re lucky enough!” Right?
Congrats all around, Patricia — and what an amazing poem you wrote to go with that photo!
I’m doing a lot of ekphrastic poetry this summer. Another great source of inspiration!
Congratulations on the good news! That’s amazing to have five engagements in your family recently. Your golden shovel is beautiful, born of your love for the natural world. Sarton’s poem is a favorite too.
Five, going on SIX!
This is a beautiful poem about the peace and beauty we find where we live (if we are lucky enough). Congratulations on your son’s engagement! It is an exciting time in your family – lots of celebrating ahead!
not only where we live but who we live with
🙂
Congratulations to your family! That is a wonderful club to be in. Also, I love your poem. It might be my favorite of yours.
High praise coming from you, Tabatha. Thank you very much.
Patricia, your happiness poem is marvelous. Highlights are firs kissed, dew glistening, and murmur of miracles. I agree with Tabatha, this poem is a favorite because of its imagery, word choice, and feeling of being there with you. This is the 3rd time I have come back to this poem and its beauty. May you always fill your days with happiness for life. Enjoy your family’s joy.
Thank you, Carol!
What a grand Golden Shovel you’re written, Patricia. All best wishes to the happy couples, too! I didn’t know that May Sarton poem, and so I thank you and the Nevermores for choosing it.
So many opportunities for inspiration in this Poetry Friday community!
Your golden shovel digs into the heart of happiness, Patricia. Well done! 🙂
whaa whaa – love the pun!
Hooray! What a wonderful season of your life. So much celebration–congratulations. It is an interesting thing to contemplate happiness. You’ve captured so much in your first line–love that “but give me windows.” There are things that definitely make me happy. I hope I can write to that this week. Thanks, Nevermores…great prompt!
I love that a word, a line opens up our poetic consideration.
Had someone asked me to list things that make me happy, I may not have come up with windows.
But Sarton’s poem/line/word prompted me to broaden my sense of joy.
My son is getting married in two weeks and it has made me so happy to see them so happy. You have so many weddings! Congratulations! In the poetry you shared I love the sense of having an attachments to the place we call home, a place that has memories and history that maybe can continue. I love thinking about place and how it becomes part of us.
I’m also struck by how we are comprised of many places.
🙂
What an inviting and beauty filled poem Patricia! I’m a lover of windows to and any kind of opening that seems like a portal. Congrats on all these forthcoming celebrations, what a year you have ahead of you, enjoy!