So I hear you have been setting an elaborate stage
for happiness —
that you have settled on a path for your life
you have a design
and you have sketched a plan in a neat diary,
and you keep telling me that I need to get one too
something to scribble in (I imagine hiding a knife in a thick diary)
a charter for next ten-twenty years
a navigating compass — where to be
something to measure against
boy oh boy…
I am awake but it feels like a night’s old dream
spilling into the real world
I step out of my house
the street is lit up
bathed in sunshine
as though this is the first day of the Creation
oh I feel so careless
light as a speck of dust
uncaring
free
I am a nebula.
Sounds of life reverberate
Coo-s and caw-s
meow-s and bow-wow-s
earthly sounds weaving magic
did you look outside today?
Hawkers have laid their stuff by the streetside
children grab hands of their moms
as they wend their way through the market
I want to grab your hand like a child too
your hand is rubbery and small
I smile as I think of you,
the thought of you makes me happy,
makes me wistful too.
Sometimes I know
what I am looking for
sometimes I know where it is
It is just within my reach
I could raise my hand and I could grab it
then many days fly by and I don’t remember
what it was or where it was,
but this wonderful day let me tell you this —
I think I have found it.
In the billions of years of existence as dust settled on life,
and life settled on dust,
in one form or the other,
all anyone ever knew or searched for really
was not meaning,
It was happiness
happiness, now.