Thank you, heart for breaking open
every time you hear of the throbbing
ache of war. The devastation of hunger.
The agony of humans choosing
to hurt each other. May you always break.
May you never grow callous enough
that you listen to news of bombs
and betrayals as if you are listening
to the weather report. Thank you,
heart, for letting yourself be stunned
by joy at the slightest of beauties—
by the stilting gray hop of the bunny,
the pink pucker of grapefruit,
the crimson blush of amaryllis
as the tepals burgeon against the green bud.
Though the mind longs to organize,
you thrive on surprising me. Like the way
you rise up for the same rain I once reviled.
Like the way you crave the silence
that once I feared. Like the ways
you have taught me to love the parts of me
I once thought were unloveable.
For all the times I have forgotten
to say thank you, forgive me.
I am still learning. I will forget how to love,
will forget to thank you again.
But here, on the edge of who I will be,
here I am, open as I know how,
gratefulness growing, pushing
against my own green.
Posts Tagged ‘gratefulness’
Thank You Letter to My Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratefulness, heart, open, vulnerability on January 5, 2025| 4 Comments »
A Partial List of Gratefulnesses
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratefulness, thanksgiving on November 27, 2024| 2 Comments »
There’s the giddy gratefulness that sparkles
like morning sun on the river and the peaceful
gratefulness that soothes like warm wind.
There’s the gratefulness that almost hurts
as it squeezes tight around the heart,
the gratefulness that arrives quiet as cat’s paws
in the night, and the gratefulness that thrums
and swirls in us as if we’re a sky full of starlings.
Sometimes it opens as slowly
as a giant bromeliad in Bolivia, taking years,
even decades before we are ready to see it.
Sometimes it comes dressed in black.
There’s begrudging gratefulness, bedazzling
gratefulness, gratefulness that stands
on its hind legs and roars. Gratefulness
that soars like a tetherless kite. Gratefulness
that sneaks in mouselike—like an ermine
who knows just where to find the small gaps
in the rocks. Every gratefulness a chance
to glimpse what is sacred right here,
to remember our place in the living world.
Every gratefulness the chance to revel again
in the sheer miracle that we belong.
In the Garden in October
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, gratefulness, snap pea, tenderness on October 14, 2024| 8 Comments »
Though the vines are almost all brittle and dried,
somehow I find four perfect sugar snap peas
at the top of the fence. Not tough. Not pale
with age, but sweet and crisp and stringless,
and I pull them into my mouth with delight
as if I am eating the word yes. Aren’t they amazing?
I say, holding the last snap pea up to the sunflowers
where they hang heavy and dead on their stalks.
I want to offer this pea to the world like a small proof
of pleasure—some evidence that life persists
despite cold, despite exhaustion,
though the light itself seems to be failing,
but here, look in my hand, this testament to tenderness
so full of spring, so unfathomable, so here.
Amen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, gratefulness, holy, paradox, praise, sonnet on July 17, 2024| 8 Comments »
When I forget that the whole world
is holy, even the tiny dark bugs
that slip through window screens
and flock and stick to kitchen lights,
even the charred black remains of forest,
even the river as it floods bright red,
even when my cheeks are tear-stained
and my body tightens with fear,
that is when a kind letter from a stranger
arrives in the mail, or the rabbit will stand
on his back legs to nibble on mint,
or the meadow will blaze with the day’s
last slant of sunlight and my heart opens
so wide that inside the fear rises praise.
The Same Trail, Only Different
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged eagle, friendship, gratefulness, time on January 31, 2024| 4 Comments »
for Michelle
After staring at the eagle
in the barren cottonwood,
I stare at you as you stare at it,
knowing the moment more precious
because we’re together on this river trail
stopping to stare at the white-feathered head,
the sharp yellow beak,
the thrill of the stillness of the bird.
How much of my life
has been better because
I shared it with you?
Heartbreak and gray mud,
surgeries and eighties songs,
short skirts and big hats
and cars with fast engines,
all of it fleeting as the chance
to watch an eagle on a branch,
glorious in part because we know
it will soon fly away.
So much change so fast. This is why
we hold out our arms to each other,
why we bury our noses in the pungent sage.
This is why we laugh until we cry,
cry until we laugh.
It’s the only life we have.
The Wellness Visits
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged doctor, gratefulness, grief on January 30, 2024| 8 Comments »
for Scott
There in the lobby of the shipping store
was the man who for years
measured my son and weighed
my son and checked his lungs, his tongue,
his vision, made sure his knees
swung out when hit with a mallet.
Standing between pallets of cardboard
and the counter piled with tape,
I didn’t mean to blurt out, My son is dead.
Hours later, I wonder if I could have
spared him this blade of truth.
Mostly, I wanted to thank him,
his efforts of the past somehow
even more precious now.
I wanted him to know it matters,
the care he gave. It matters
that he, too, did his best to help the boy
grow strong. It matters, his kindness.
How he helped us feel at ease.
It matters that I have this now:
the memory of a sapling boy
in a thin blue gown sitting tall,
shoulders back, on the edge
of an exam table, looking this man
in the eye with such seriousness,
breathing in, breathing out
as deeply as he can.
Inner Fusion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, driving, father, gratefulness, grief, memory, New York on January 11, 2024| 8 Comments »
How does it happen,
you’re driving and the mind
opens a door closed for decades
and suddenly you’re sitting
at an elegant white table
with white linen napkins
and a single white rose
in a restaurant in The Plaza Hotel
in downtown New York City
and your father sits across
from you, his smile wide,
his eyes bright, and you’re fifteen
and you’ve never before
been in a place like this
and it’s wonderful, this strange
and beautiful scene where
you don’t belong and yet
all worlds seem to merge into this one
where you’re driving through snow
on the winding river road and
your father is here holding your hand
as you look at the menu and
accelerate through the curve
as he taught you and
he loves you and though
he is dead now, you can’t stop
saying thank you.
Smack Dab in the Middle of a Thursday
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratefulness, life, miracle, softening, sunlight on December 7, 2023| 10 Comments »
Why do I resist calling it a miracle,
this light that streams now through my window,
this light that has travelled ninety-three million miles
through solar wind particles and radiation
and countless numbers of solar neutrinos
to land here on my living room floor.
As if because it can be measured
and tracked it is any less divine.
As if, just because it’s been happening
for four point five billion years
it is any less extraordinary,
this journey of warmth and radiance.
I let the light-loving animal of my being
curl into the spaces of the room
where the sunlight pools in bright invitation,
and I soften, soften into my breath,
soften into the wonder
of being alive in this very moment
in this very body with this very heart
meeting this very gentle amazement
at how very good it can be, this life.
The Joy of Repetition
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Beethoven, gratefulness, mozart, music, repetition, variation on November 24, 2023| 7 Comments »
at the Palais Montcalm
Just because I’ve been grateful before
doesn’t make today’s gratefulness any less true—
I think of Beethoven who fell in love
with a melody by Mozart,
then wrote seven variations for cello and piano—
one minor, one song-like,
three written in different times,
but each variation at heart the same.
I think of the joy on the young cellist’s face tonight
as he drew on the bow and plucked on the strings
as if this one performance were everything.
And so it is with gratefulness—
each time we express it, it matters the most.
Whether it’s a new expression
or a variation on a gratefulness theme
that we will again and again name.
Like gratefulness for family.
Gratefulness for friends.
Gratefulness for morning, evening.
For each scrap of peace.
For each chance to be grateful again.
If you are interested in listening:
* Seven Variations in E flat major for cello and piano is based on the aria Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen (“In men, who feel love”) from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute.
It’s Like This
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratefulness, science, thank you, thanks, thanksgiving on November 23, 2023| 4 Comments »
“The odds of you being alive are basically zero.”
—Dina Spector reporting the work of Dr. Ali Binazir, Business Insider, June 11, 2012
It’s like this. The sun itself
is constantly moving through space,
and yet it never leaves us.
Add this to the list of marvels—
like how a glass of water
was once a cloud,
like how love can grow in us
despite sorrow, fear.
Given such gifts,
one must wonder how it is
our arms aren’t constantly raised
in spontaneous praise for life.
I know and you know
why sometimes our hands stay down.
But now, standing still together,
even as we’re spinning
and racing through space,
even if it’s only a whisper,
when faced with the truth
that great forces hold
our lives in place,
it feels right to say
thank you, thank you,
eyes lifting, heart trembling,
the improbable earth
so solid beneath our feet.