Thispoem, 'Happiness', was spoken by me at the wedding of my son Rory to Libby at Holy Island (Linidsfarne) on 17 November 2007. It is puhlished in Agenda Vol. 43 Nos. 2-3 2008.

The picture is of Libby, Rory and myself at Lindisfarne Castle in which the wedding took place



Happiness

     for my son Rory on his wedding


Remember that day at Yarmouth?
- I watched the cone in your grip
tilting, until splat!
on the pavement, your world
lost… But the man in the shop
gave you another ice-cream, free.
The seaside came back.

The next year, happiness
was a tree-house, high and dry
among greenery filtering
sunlight and bird-song,
a ladder up to it and
the steel pole to slide down
to the little train that circuited
the grounds, past water.

Then came the paper boats
we folded to race on the Witham,
more fragile vessels, some
were pecked ragged by swans.

All these were a long time ago
- longer for you than for me;
that is the way time goes,
contracting as we pass it.
Teaching us loss
that knows no remedy,
settings-out that never
come round full-circle,
and how soon, as for those boats,
dissolution comes
in the shrugging welter.
And also this:
that the truest happiness
is when life finds some use for
the love we ache to give.

We cannot command it. Choosing
(as we must) may betray us.
Or, suddenly dancing
like snowflakes under a streetlamp,
it melts at the touch of earth.

Denied it, all we achieve
means only ashes,
the scald of tears.

All we can do is be ready.