Happiness
There's a lantern in the window
and a wild boar in the wood
as I'm standin' in the plantin' field
and feelin' pretty good
'bout my farmin' situation
an' my plans for wintertime,
'bout that woman from Winooski,
'an how glad I am she's mine.

Got a bottle in the bureau,
and a smokin' ham out back,
as I look about my holdin's,
there ain't nothin' that I lack,
'cept that boar ... he keeps escapin'
every time we hunt him down:
like a ghost he disappears and leaves
us shootin' at the ground.

I got 'coons and I got turkey,
I got squirrels and I got deer,
shoot 'em, skin 'em, cook 'em, eat 'em,
that's the way we do it here.
But that boar, he keeps eludin' us,
he's smart as twenty men.
I b'lieve I'll know true happiness
when I make a ham of him.

J. Eric Smith

This is poem #194 in the 2004 'Poem a Day' project at Giant Nylon Hairnet. As soon as I read it I imagined it as a song. So here it is, recorded down on the farm by Gordon (12-string pitchfork, bass and handclaps) and myself:
Happiness.mp3
(for personal use only, words and music copyright Smith/Edwards)