A Teaspoonful of Happiness

Imagine: your life's work in a teaspoon! Every now and then, we need a little smack in the face to stop our whining and complaining and realize how blessed we humans are. This poem did that for me, as Jeanie points out that the sum total of a honeybee's life is six weeks and all he has to show for those six weeks of frantic productivity is a single spoonful of honey. I haven't checked this fact for scientific accuracy--I'm guessing she did--but teaspoon or tablespoon (or half a cup, for that matter!), the message of this poem stopped me in my tracks.

2010 Poetry Parade: Day 25

Sweetness
by
Jeanie Tomasko

God gave the honeybee six weeks
and so
she flies
five hundred miles
in short refrains
of alleluias
to windy, white clover fields
to pink and proper rose gardens
gathering nectar in that careful needle
taking no time for self-pity, though
her life’s work, together
with that of eleven sisters
was the teaspoon of honey
I just stirred into my tea.

Sometimes she stops to walk
on my sunflowers,
her sturdy legs grow heavy
as she fills her pollen-baskets
with food for the bees back home,
but I like to think her stroll
on those upturned yellow faces,
is more for the joy of making me wonder
what I know of happiness.

This poem first appeared in the Wisconsin Poets' Calendar.
Used here with the author's permission.

Learn more about this poet here.

When I was in college, I watched a lot of foreign films, always struck by how much more of a role sensory impressions played in those films that the American ones I was used to. Colors were brighter, sounds more pronounced...aspects that would have been completely overlooked in an American film often took center stage in these.

That's what strikes me about this poem--how the modest and mundane can become beautiful and significant if we just slow down long enough to really notice them.

2010 Poetry Parade: Day 11

Sight Will Sharpen
by
S. Thomas Summers

If you gaze through a window long enough,
you’ll discover your eyes tether themselves
to some trivial chip of scenery: a gray mailbox,
its open mouth tilted skyward like a canon –
the dark belly of a garbage can harboring secrets:
the brown flesh of a half-eaten pear and the worn skin
of a kitchen towel stained with mustard
and strawberry jam. Your sight will sharpen itself
against your imagination and the darkness insulating
the air between evergreen branches will brighten.
The shade tattooed beneath a row of tulips near
the neighbor’s fence will glow.

© by S. Thomas Summers
Used here with the author's permission.

To see details, go to www.YourDailyPoem.com.