Everyone knows happiness

Everyone knows happiness. But we forget it sometimes.
We lose it underneath the driver's seat with a random quarter,
a pen cap, and an acorn from November, 2010.
It falls to the bottom of our messenger bag with Target receipts and linty gum.
We pack it away with the winter clothes.  Way back in the closet.
It gets hidden behind the boxes of pasta and baking soda,
or gooshy and spoiled in the vegetable bin. 
We have been known to toss it in the recycling by mistake.
Or leave it on the front porch where it gets rained on.
I know I have thrown mine down in the ravine after weeding,
and have tried to relocate it in my garden but it did not take.
One time, I found it rolling around in the dryer like a magic ten dollar bill,
but by the time I took the laundry out, it had vanished.
Everyone knows happiness, but we are careless with it.
We ignore its expiration date.  We don't fill its tires to the right pressure.
We let it take such a long nap that we forget that it is living in our house.
I set mine down like reading glasses, never quite sure if I will recall where I put it.
And it sits, sometimes, on the tip of my tongue -- happiness does --
not coming to me like so many words now.
My brain rushes, panicked to find it,
but all I can do is merely point and say,
"That. That is what I am trying to say. "