These are the happiest days

Miami

Under this canvas cabana, white bower
of unadulterated hope, I won’t tell
you these are the happiest days we’ll ever
pass. Best not to say.

Nothing will come and steal from us this hour
unless it’s our nagging, aggravating will
to think of things always as worse than they are,
to cloud up the day,

as it were. Otherwise, it’s in our power
to spend the whole afternoon drinking our fill
of sun (soaking now through the canvas over
us) and even say

what’s on our minds a little. Because showers
do come (look at Cornelia and Raphael—
one split second and she lost him forever).
It’s the normal way

of things to bloom and brighten, then turn sour.
We haven’t been singled out—we’re not bad souls.
But happiness rarely stays in place. These are
the happiest days.

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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 32 Number 7, on page 28
Copyright © 2023 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com
https://newcriterion.com/issues/2014/3/these-are-the-happiest-days