By sheer euphoria-inducing good luck, I have an old poem that just fits here.
SUDDEN EUPHORIA OF A MIDDLE-AGED SOUTHERNER
Youth gone and beauty never having come
nor money either, where’s it springing from,
this sudden joy? Fine weather and the slope
of green lawn to the bayou, snow-white shape
of heron fishing on the bank, it part
of it. The rest is books and art,
good health, two cats, a marriage going strong
for twenty years, a friendship just as long,
plus writing and the love of what I write.
Summing up joys, I savor my delight:
this is as close as I will ever get
to the mystic’s peak of holy self-forget-
fulness, the warrior in his savage bliss,
the lover’s ecstasy. I’ll call it this:
a sense of living in a world well-planned.
Is this contentment? Yes. Well I’ll be damned.
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