To Happiness -- Carl Dennis

(Poem #250)To Happiness If you're not approaching, I hope at least You're off to comfort someone who needs you more, Not lost wandering aimlessly Or drawn to the shelter of well-lit rooms Where people assume you've arrived already. If you're coming this way, send me the details— The name of the ship, the port it leaves from— So I can be down on the dock to help you Unload your valises, your trunks and boxes And stow them in the big van I'll have rented. I'd like this to be no weekend stay Where a single change of clothes is sufficient. Bring clothes for all seasons, enough to fill a closet; And instead of a single book for the bedside table Bring boxes of all your favorites. I'll be eager to clear half my shelves to make room, Eager to read any titles you recommend. If we've many in common, feel free to suggest They prove my disposition isn't to blame For your long absence, just some problems of attitude, A few bad habits you'll help me set to one side. We can start at dinner, which you're welcome To cook for us while I sweep and straighten And set the table. Then light the candles You've brought from afar for the occasion. Light them and fill the room I supposed I knew With a glow that shows me I was mistaken. Then help me decide if I'm still the person I was Or someone else, someone who always believed in you And imagined no good reasons for your delay. -- Carl Dennis

The God Who Loves You -- Carl Dennis

(Poem #45)The God Who Loves You It must be troubling for the god who loves you To ponder how much happier you'd be today Had you been able to glimpse your many futures. It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings Driving home from the office, content with your week— Three fine houses sold to deserving families— Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened Had you gone to your second choice for college, Knowing the roommate you'd have been allotted Whose ardent opinions on painting and music  Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion. A life thirty points above the life you're living On any scale of satisfaction. And every point  A thorn in the side of the god who loves you. You don't want that, a large-souled man like you Who tries to withhold from your wife the day's disappointments So she can save her empathy for the children. And would you want this god to compare your wife With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus? It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation You'd have enjoyed over there higher in insight Than the conversation you're used to. And think how this loving god would feel Knowing that the man next in line for your wife Would have pleased her more than you ever will Even on your best days, when you really try. Can you sleep at night believing a god like that Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives You're spared by ignorance? The difference between what is And what could have been will remain alive for him Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill Running out in the snow for the morning paper, Losing eleven years that the god who loves you Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend No closer than the actual friend you made at college, The one you haven't written in months. Sit down tonight And write him about the life you can talk about With a claim to authority, the life you've witnessed, Which for all you know is the life you've chosen.  -- Carl Dennis