The Happiness

There's a happiness, a joy

in one soul, that's been

buried alive in everyone

and forgotten.

It isn't your barroom joke

or tender, intimate humor

or affections of friendliness

or big, bright pun.

They're the surviving survivors

of what happened when happiness

was buried alive, when

it no longer looked out

of today's eyes, and doesn't

even manifest when one

of us dies, we just walk away

from everything, alone

with what's left of us,

going on being human beings

without being human,

without that happiness.

Jack Hirschman

(Picture: The walk, Luc Tuymans)