"AN ECONOMICS OF HAPPINESS" BY JOHN DONLAN

I'll see your mistake and double it.
Orange King Billy, Our Guide To the Open Bible,
proclaims, "It's just a text," but we suspect
that plant scents, or cloud ripples on ponds

are irreducible, they point at nothing
but themselves, our efforts
to capture them bright innocent chalk smears
on slate, unwitting self-portraits

made for praise, half-consciously, the food
we need to grow into our loneliness.
Ghost children soothe, and settle, seeing a smile
although they know they'll always be invisible.

White lilies have passed, yellow come on.
Soon all will be pillowed with snow
smooth as summer wind. The frogs don't know.
"Donk," they say. A mother drinks, and her fawn.

From "Spirit Engine"


	An Economics of Happiness