with a phrase from Augusta Kantra
To sit late at night by the small fire
my daughter has made using cedar wood
split by the man I married over thirty years ago.
To feel the good heat of it reach through
the thick muscles of my back, infusing
me with such honest contentment
I unfold in the warmth.
To feel grateful for this small constellation
of family, humbled again and again
by the tenderness we offer each other.
Is it everything, this whispery moment,
with its soft glow of enoughness,
this ease that arrives in me,
as quiet as evening, when I am able to honor
every wanted and every unbidden thing
that conspired to bring me here to this hearth
in winter’s dim light. And like a violet
that can’t help but open at the slightest warmth,
I fall in love again with this life.