North Carolina
June 2015
Halfway from Charlotte to our destination in the Great Smoky Mountains, we pass the village of Flat Rock. Carl Sandberg lived here, as fine a writer and poet as ever wrote and poeted. Here is Happiness…
I asked professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness.
And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men.
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them.
And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Desplaines River
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.
My brother, who lived in San Francisco, had a grey cat. The cat’s name was Fog.
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.