Pursuit of Happiness

author reading in her garden

I shouldn’t be happy 

till everybody is,

Boddhisattva postponing bliss,

but let me be honest.

I take pleasure in a mocha,

seek like a cat the sunny spot

in my garden to read a book.

What do I pursue?

Rest after labor well done,

mirth among friends,

the way my sweetheart looks at me

when I make him laugh,

and laugh still more,

fleeting communion a foretaste

of what the Boddhisatva

is waiting for.

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Mary Camille Thomas

Mary Camille Thomas is a native of Santa Cruz who is grateful to make her home on the California coast once more after living internationally and on the road. She studied comparative literature at UC Davis and received a master’s degree in library science from UCLA, which gave her a way to earn a living while making a life among books. Her poetry and essays have appeared in the Monk in the World Guest Post Series, Moving Force Journal, Presence, Porter Gulch Review, Second Wind, Sisters Singing, and The New Story, and she has completed a novel called What Lies Buried about a man reckoning with his family’s Nazi past.

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