Happiness

A life in constant flight may be remembered
by taking photographs,
each frame preserved forever.
The image is what’s kept.

We may remember patterns: maps on a wall,
an array of junk
or a horse looking over a fence,
and, so, recall a horizon that never was reached.

Perhaps we fell
or the wall or fence was too high
and could not be breached.
Or maybe we refused to jump
if the risk cost all.

Still, images surround us, not just on walls
or loaded in a camera,
but swarmed like bees inside a hive’s glass shell.
It’s in between one image and the next
that living falls.

If only we could seize it, knew how to reach
precisely what we wanted,
grasp and hold.
Or maybe will is lacking.

We reach with hands to capture clouds and smoke,
while what we want
is something more than sighs.
If we were wise, we would sit back and wait.
Life gives itself.