Missed Time

Missed Time
by Ha Jin

My notebook has remained blank for months
thanks to the light you shower
around me. I have no use
for my pen, which lies
languorously without grief.

Nothing is better than to live
a storyless life that needs
no writing for meaning—
when I am gone, let others say
they lost a happy man,
though no one can tell how happy I was.

***

Doubtless this is not true for everyone - but I do find it so much easier to write when I am anxious about something else in my life.