A SONG OF TWO GAMES

MY POEMS TODAY: A stab at defining what it means to be happy. That is our business while we are alive, isn't it? Let's work on it.


A SONG OF TWO GAMES
(For All My Love Ones)
...

I never said I’d stopped playing. /… your turn now/ to guess which one is hiding the sun. ---Luisa A. Igloria, “Letter to Fortune”, Morning Porch


1. Game One
“Quick, guess where the pebble is,
and if you do, you will be happy!”

What if this were the only wager
in a game of chance of opening
and closing a cup over a rolling
pebble, not unlike the hide-’n-seek
the sun plays now with clouds
darting hither and thither with
winds blowing from all directions?

Will you take it? Will I dare?
What have we got to lose,
one way or another? I hold
your hand and you squeeze mine,
a signal to choose the arrant hiding cup,
and voila: I miss it. Happiness, too?

Happy is as happy does: you are
with me to roll the dice. Would I care
willy-nilly where happiness lies?
Under the cup where the pebble
has custody of nothing, least of all
my joie de vivre — you, my love,
who will be my ransom should I
lose this game of chance?



2. Game Two (After a Letter to Fortune)


“Quick now, guess now: high winds
rearrange the clouds, having learned
too about this game of chance.
Which one is hiding the sun? Which?
Mind the wager: if you fail this test,
should you pin the tail on the wrong
side of the donkey, or choose poorly,
you will keep on guessing all your life
whether or not you can be happy.”

Happy is as happy does: you are
with me to roll the dice. Would I care
willy-nilly where happiness lies?
With you, my love, neither wind nor
cloud will hide the sun. You are my sun.
Should I choose madly, choose badly,
what of it? I never said I’d stop playing.


—Albert B. Casuga