Happiness becomes you

Happiness becomes you

Would that it could be

More easily found

Even as it hides

In the gloaming of strange places

Squashed between the pages

Of a journal

Pressed flowers flattering

To deceive

Old photographs packed in boxes

Albums partly filled

With memories

Many loosely held

The indentation of a pillow

A smile from a stranger

Before they turn their face away

A moment of clarity

When the rain stops

The sun peeps through broken cloud

Steam rising from the blacktop

As the birdsong begins

The cicadas screech

A prelude to harmony

When all things are possible

If only for the moment

It takes to remember

The way things were

How easily happiness

Slips away

Harder to recognise

Than a stranger

More difficult to grasp

Than its meaning

Everybody knows how

To tickle fish

But few people

Know when to hold on.