Fists on Fire: Poetry from the Heart of the Revolution

THE HAPPINESS

by Jack Hirschman

There's a happiness, a joy
in the soul, that's benn
buried alive in everyone
and forgotten.

It isn't your bar-room joke,
or tender, intimate humor,
or affections of friendliness
or a big, bright pun.

They're the surviving survivors
of what happened when happiness
was buried alive, when
it no longer looked out

of today's eyes, and doesn't
even manifest when one
of us dies, we just walk away
from everything, alone

with what's left of us,
going on being human beings
without being human,
without that happiness.