Carl Sandburg on Happiness

This new year I intend to be content with the simplier things in life.  I thought this poem by Carl Sandburg captured the idea.



HAPPINESS


I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell

me what is happiness.

And I went to famous executives who boss the work of

thousands of men.

They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though

I was trying to fool with them

And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along

the Desplaines river

And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with

their women and children and a keg of beer and an

accordion.

--Carl Sandburg

Christmas Fast Approaches

Christmas fast approaches;
Frost is on the wreath.
The cloudless night so bright
brings a canopy of chill.
Split logs stacked by the door
house a mouse or two.
Chimney smoke spirals
through the leafless maple
and warm inside the cottage
grandchildren laugh as they inspect
wrapped gifts under the tree.

--Alice C. Linsley

Vacant Chair by Paul Turnidge

The gentleman who wrote this touching poem lost his wife, Flo, about a week before my mother died. Flo and my mother were friends. I hope they’ve met each other by now in heaven.



VACANT CHAIR

I love you dear with all my heart,
True love was ours to share,
God has called you to His Home,
I’m left with a vacant chair.


I think of things I’ve done today,
My toil and my care;
I praise the Lord you’re free from pain,
But I’m left with a vacant chair.


The day will come, I’ll join you there,
In Heaven, bright and fair,
We’ll praise the Lord, with all our heart,
And there’ll be no vacant chair!

--Paul R. Turnidge

Winners of the Random Word Poetry Contest

And the winners are... Jordan Romain and Ed Pacht.  Here are their winning entries:

Web of Lies

Your web of lies appears to show
the gladness of a kind soul,
masking the prickly strips of silk,
fragments that flash
like hollowing salutes.
A pair of love-soaked silk ribbons
swoop between the pillars,
cinching a tightly laced corset.
The dust of betrayal fades,
revealing a blood-red trench.
In its midst clay
molds your life to the lies
you created.
Deeper still,
iron chains box and bind you.
Before you realize, you are forever deep
in the bottomless pit,
caught in your web of lies.


---Jordan Romain (Grade 10)



The Love-Soaked Road

The cacti stood in prickly rows beside the path,
much like pillars lined beside a sacred way.
A pair was walking hand-in hand in blowing dust,
bare feet slapping on the hard-packed clay.
In gladness beginning a journey together,
they watched the eagles swoop so far above,
with snow-white feathers flashing in the sun
in silent salute to their growing love.

For two whose lives were cut to ribbons
by the iron forces of a cruel world,
pounded into battered fragments,
and into the trash with scorn were hurled,
there seemed no choice for such as these,
that were prisoned, and trapped in that dark box,
and hopelessly caught like flies in a web,
straining and struggling to break through the locks.

Then a kind soul with a voice like silk
discovered those two, each in a trench,
brought them together, lifted them up,
and left them alone on a little stone bench,
hollowing there a place in their hearts
each for the other, where pain had been,
reaching to touch both hands and soul,
each healing the other deeply within.

The cacti stood in prickly rows beside the path,
much like pillars lined beside a sacred way.
A pair was walking that love-soaked road,
bare feet slapping on the hard-packed clay.
In gladness beginning a journey together,
they watched as sunset made the sky red,
a radiant salute to their growing love,
knowing that soon their vows would be said.

---ed pacht