poem happiness: naomi shihab nye

so much happiness

it is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.  
with sadness there is something to rub against,   
a wound to tend with lotion & cloth.  
when the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,  
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.
  
but happiness floats.  
it doesn’t need you to hold it down.  
it doesn’t need anything.  
happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,  
& disappears when it wants to.
you are happy either way.  
even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house  
& now live over a quarry of noise & dust  
cannot make you unhappy.  
everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities  
of coffee cake & ripe peaches,  
& love even the floor which needs to be swept,  
the soiled linens & scratched records.
  
since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,  
you shrug, you raise your hands, & it flows out of you  
into everything you touch. you are not responsible.  
you take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit  
for the moon, but continues to hold it, & share it,
& in that way, be known.

naomi shihab nye

*my favorite part of this poem*

everything has a life of its own,

it too could wake up filled with possibilities  

of coffee cake & ripe peaches,

*waking up to ripe peaches is on my happiness list*