The Great Little Things

"Happiness can be found
in the embrace of someone close
and in a child's smile…"

Yes. But I also remember the story
of a few boys who set out in search of happiness
and were caught high in a hotel in Plovdiv.
One of them was perched naked on the TV.
Two of them paint, and I like their paintings.
Now they no longer search for happiness, and they don't get caught
high in a hotel in Plovdiv.
They are alive and search for happiness in a child's smile…
And they paint walls with great little brushes.

"It is so important to free yourself from
the obsessive mania of chasing the truth
and to look closely at the raindrops,
at the sand under your fingernails…"

Yes. And here I remember the tavern in Poduyane,
"The Old Jockey", where a drunken painter
told me how the truth had once visited him
and he, being frightened, had wet himself.
And he kept picking at his nails. The great little sand beneath them…
And more wine…, because in it is…

"The search for beauty is an eternal occupation.
We can discover it even in the most insignificant…"

Yes. But I want the seas, the mountains and the people —
the three most significant things I know. With them I feel beautiful,
and I don't want to hide my weaknesses, to guard myself…,
And let the great little things leave me in peace,
and let the great big things crush me, drown me or burn me.