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Writer's pictureIPM Team
Aug 171 min read

To Happiness | John Fox, PPM


A photo of a rural road with grass in the center and gravel in the rutted tracks. The sun sets bright orange in the distance just over the hill as the road leads forward. A tree stands on the left beside the road at the top of the hill. On the right in the foreground there are small white wildflowers with a dark rise beyond them along the road. The image is overlayed with a quote from Walt Whitman followed by a response-poem by John Fox titled "To Happiness" The words overlying the image read: Do you see O my brothers and sisters? / It is not chaos or death - it is form, union, plan - it is eternal / life - it is Happiness. / Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, 50 // Inspired by the Walt Whitman excerpt, the poem by John Fox follows: You who runs along / a weedy path / just beyond my sight / yet within ear shot / so that I hear you / singing with such / a fine voice, light-hearted. // I imagine your face. / Are you youthful? / Supple, agile, free? / The answer to that question, / happiness, is a resounding yes. / And then, no. A beautiful no. // You could be old, / older than time itself / so that your face, changed / into wrinkles beyond measure, / wrinkles that are laughing / while you are playing / in the weeds on the / weedy path of this life. // O come back for me happiness. / I would like to go on with you. // John Fox The Institute for Poetic Medicine

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This poem was included in IPM's August Newsletter.

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