May 7: Fiding Happiness, Pablo Neruda, "Ode to Sadness"

When I pick up my daughter this evening from her dance studio, I will take her shopping for Mother's Day.  We will buy cards for mother and grandma and aunts.  We'll pick up some good chocolates.  Maybe a DVD or a book.  I have no plan.

At the end of this rather solemn day, I'm all about finding some happiness.  I want to find something that will make my wife smile this Sunday.  I want to drive sadness into the shadows tonight.  Banish it.  I've had enough of its company.

Saint Marty is taking his cue from Neruda tonight.

Ode to Sadness

by:  Pablo Neruda

Sadness, scarab
with seven crippled feet,
spiderweb egg,
scramble-brained rat,
bitch's skeleton:
No entry here.
Don't come in.
Go away.
Go back
south with your umbrella,
go back
north with your serpent's teeth.
A poet lives here.
No sadness may
cross this threshold.
Through these windows
comes the breath of the world,
fresh red roses,
flags embroidered with
the victories of the people.
No.
No entry.
Flap
your bat's wings,
I will trample the feathers
that fall from your mantle,
I will sweep the bits and pieces
of your carcass to
the four corners of the wind,
I will wring your neck,
I will stitch your eyelids shut,
I will sew your shroud,
sadness, and bury your rodent bones
beneath the springtime of an apple tree.

Anybody want a piece of happiness?