WHITHER HAPPINESS

The child believes in crying

That happiness and its ilk

Is all about having

His share of Mummy’s milk.

He later believes as he may

That happiness is all about

Having time to run and play.

As he grows older nigh

He thinks that for happiness to stay

He just has to get stoned and high.

As responsibilities then begin to pile on

He feels happiness has got to do

With having lots of money too.

As he grows truly lonely

he then seeks happiness in love

He breeds a family

While his life cooks on a stove.

And these and more he does

And tries his hand

At everything he loves

But happiness does not stay or stand

For happiness in not in what he does

He attaches importance to the material

And fails to find happiness true

He delves into the superficial

But there are an enlightened few

Who realize that happiness is abstract

And not connected to the material

These people then change tack

And begin to seek the spiritual…

And in the spiritual they attach

Importance to the ritual

They fail once again to detach

And fall once again into the trap

They then wonder, whither happiness

As they wither, age and warp

Into death’s eternal peacefulness

Without finding true happiness