These lines from Naomi Shihab Nye's So Much Happiness seems to answer the question why we don't recognize the times that we are truly and completely happy. The moments seem to slip away from weightlessness. Comes a point when you wonder if what you are experiencing was happiness in the raw or were there any snags and gaps that made it less than immaculate
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 and 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.
With sadness there is no mistaking the state. There is proof you can hold on to like "ticket stubs". Reading Ten Poems to Set you Free is a nice collection and the editor's thoughts on each one made for a more interactive experience. The reader comes to their own conclusions and then gets a chance to read what someone else thinks of it. This is not typical for poetry collections and I liked it.
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