Am I happy?

For Nicole, a villanelle 






Ask yourself, honestly, ‘am I happy?’
Lie on the damp grass, in your favourite spot
Peer through the spindle of an ash tree

So as to interrogate the grey sky
You are not hungry, or freezing, but
Ask yourself, honestly, ‘am I happy?’

The birds don't seem to be, they merely fly
And the leaves, they just hang there, shot
Peer through the spindle of an ash tree

Of the tortured branches, seek a reply
Go on, I know you must do it a lot
Ask yourself, honestly, ‘am I happy?’

Seek the answer throughout the galaxy
From alpha to omega, dot to dot
Peer through the spindle of an ash tree

Deep down you know it's pointless really
Because, if you have to ask you are not
Peer through the spindle of an ash tree
Ask yourself, honestly, ‘am I happy?’

“Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way. The enjoyments of life (such was now my theory) are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient. They will not bear a scrutinizing examination. Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust themselves on that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling on it or thinking about it, without either forestalling it in imagination, or putting it to flight by fatal questioning.”

John Stuart Mill, English philosopherhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill