November 25: Suffering and Art, Ha Jin, "Missed Time"

Got another poem of gratitude for you guys this evening.  It's about happiness and art.  It's about how some of the best art comes out of suffering and grief.  The best poems I know are all about wounds and healing.  Ha Jin knows this fact.  I know this fact.

I'm not writing a poem tonight.  I'm not talking about any kind of pain or hurt.  Yes, I'm tired.  Yes, I don't want to go to work tomorrow.  But, that's not pain.  That's irritation.


Marty is a happy saint tonight.

Missed Time

by:  Ha Jin

My notebook has remained blank for months

thanks to the light you shower

around me. I have no use

for my pen, which lies

languorously without grief.

Nothing is better than to live

a storyless life that needs

no writing for meaning—

when I am gone, let others say

they lost a happy man,

though no one can tell how happy I was.

Other happy saints