Happy is very smart, and this is why
There is so much injustice.
The miserable die in misery.
Unhappiness cannot think;
Therefore, the miserable cannot be happy.
Before thought—sweet thought!—is possible, joy
Must surge through the body,
Exciting our thinking. The goal
Cannot exist. We are immediately happy
With the world to be happy. I don’t remember why
I am happy, and in your cloudy misery,
You are unable to follow my thinking.
You read what I am saying, and disagree.
You are certain wisdom is not joy, but misery,
Life, you say, is difficult, short, and bad—
You think it’s idiotic to think smart is glad.
“The survivor,” you say, “facing harsh reality,
Is not some grinning fool.
Before you are happy, you need to work—or go to school.
And further, because life is sad and brief,
Joy needs help from wine or the aromatic leaf.
Happiness is not from intelligence, it is from a certain worth
Attached to men. Unlike me, you—a man—are less close to the earth.
To say happy is smart, and that you have joy, or don’t,
Is the stupidest thing. Don’t say that again, don’t.”
She went on, refuting my poem for quite a while.
Feeling like a child, I looked at her and smiled.
She looked at my smile. I thought she would smile, but she did not smile.