So early it's still almost dark out.
I'm near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.
When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.
They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren't saying anything, these boys.
I think if they could, they would take
each other's arm.
It's early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.
They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn't enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.
Carver, Raymond. "Happiness." Americanpoems.com. American Poems, n.d. Web. 7 May 2015. <http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/carver/7416>.
Raymond carver uses imagery throughout his poem to create the simple moment that makes the two boys happy. As the speaker says, “They come on, slowly. / The sky is taking on light, / though the moon still hangs pale over the water.” he uses the words “moon”, “slowly” and “light” to create a visual imagery and the word “they” represents the two boys. This imagery creates a picture of two boys walking slowly and moon hangs in the air. The light of the sky and the moon that hangs create a peaceful place. We understand that the boys are happy because the speaker says that they walking slowly and in the previous stanza the speaker says, “They are so happy / they aren't saying anything, these boys.” This sentence of light and moon connects to theme of being happy with small things because this setting of light coming and moon on top are not huge and rare things, they are simple things, as we can see that setting many times in our lives. So, Raymond Carver’s imagery and description are the key pieces of the poem that create the ‘magical’ moment of two boys walking happily. As a final point, Raymond carver uses imagery to create the simplicity of the happiness of two boys.
Raymond Carver uses a peaceful tone in his poem to create the simplicity and the happiness of the moment of two boys. As the speaker says, “So early it's still almost dark out. / I'm near the window with coffee, / and the usual early morning stuff / that passes for thought.” he talks about the setting before the two boys came. He uses the word “usual” to describe the setting and it gives reader comfort and peace as the word “usual” means that everything is okay and normal. Also it creates simplicity, as something usual and normal is simple and two boys happiness is created from this usual and simple place. Later on in the poem, as the speaker says, “Such beauty that for a minute / death and ambition, even love, / doesn't enter into this.” he talks about two boys’ moment that is full of beauty and peace and the word “this” represents their happiness. As he uses the words “death”, “ambition” and “love” and say they do not enter to their happiness, those words he uses have power in them and they symbolize big things. With saying that they are not in their happiness, he tells the reader how happy and simple the moment is and his word choice helped him to do that. So with his word choices that created his peaceful tone, Raymond Carver creates the simple, peaceful and happy moment in people’s minds.
To conclude, the poem “Happiness” by Raymond Carver uses a peaceful tone and imagery in his poem to create the special moment of two boys. The peaceful tone with word choices helps the reader to imagine a happier and more peaceful moment of happiness. The imagery helps the reader to think of the place and the moment and how peaceful and happy that moment is by making the reader think of light of sky and moon. With his poem and the two boys he talks about, Raymond Carver tries to teach people that they can be happy with the small and simple moments in their life and they just have to notice them to be happy like the two newspaper boys.