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Posts Tagged ‘luck’

 
Without knowing it this morning,
I woke to the day
the bluebirds returned.
 
Every morning it is like this—
the chance to rise into a day
of unexpected blessings.
 
All afternoon the bluebirds weave
through the field, perch on the roof,
bob in the grass.
 
I marvel at how easily
beauty slips in to help me
fall in love with not knowing.
 
All day I feel lucky,
like a woman given
a truth so precious
 
not because she deserved it
but because she woke up
and met the day.
 

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Just in Case

As a girl, I walked with twenty pennies

in my shoe. A penny in your shoe

was good luck, I’d heard,

and with each added penny

found on the sidewalk, I felt luckier.

The bottoms of my feet, of course, turned green.

And sometimes when I’d dangle my shoe from a toe,

it sounded like a child was shaking a piggy bank.

But dang, I was lucky. I believed it.

I don’t walk with pennies anymore,

and I don’t really believe in luck

but if I could give you some pennies tonight

to put in your boots, I would.

And an upturned horse shoe.

A kick-ass horoscope.

A candle to blow out and make a wish—

and the beautiful darkness after—

and a match to light the candle again

to make another wish. And another.

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Lucky

IMG_5947

Look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now. History is happenin’.

            —Lin-Manuel Miranda, “The Schuyler Sisters,” Hamilton

           

There are days when we know we are lucky—

when we go for a walk and find, beneath dead leaves,

yellow petals. When an envelope brings a surprise check.

When a loved one calls to say they will visit. When

our name is pulled from a hat.

And then there are days our luck is less clear.

When the commercial world as we know it collapses.

When the schools and restaurants and whole towns are closed.

When our paycheck is gone and we can’t pay

next month’s rent. When loved ones lives are threatened.

Yes then, it’s much harder to say we are lucky.

But. Every day, every day for the last week,

every day when I wake, I think to myself,

This, this is the day to make a difference.

This is the day to bring your best self to the world.

This is the day to shine and work and forgive.

 

Every cell in me is wildly alive. Every moment

feels like a gift. I’m transfixed. Every minute

feels like an invitation to show up more open,

more vulnerable, more brave than I ever dreamed I could be.

And damn, if that isn’t lucky, I don’t know what is.

The morning light, it reaches in,

bathes the whole room in gold.

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Darn Lucky

 

 

 

It happens, you know—the day opens itself

like a tulip in a warm room, and you meet someone

who amazes you with their willingness

to be a thousand percent alive, someone

who makes you feel grateful to be you.

 

And it’s as if life has been keeping a beautiful

secret from you—like the fact that they make

elderberry flowers into wine. Like muscadine.

Like the yellow-green floral scent of quince.

Like the perfect knot for tying your shoes.

 

And it turns out life does have wonderful

secrets waiting for you. Even when the news

makes you cry. Even when some old pain returns,

that’s when you will meet this new friend.

Someone wholly themselves. Someone

 

who makes you smile in the kitchen, a smile so real

that when you go out, the whole world notices.

It’s enough to make you want to wake up in the morning.

To go into the day. To be unguarded as a tulip, petals

falling open. You never know who you might meet.

 

 

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Such Luck

 

 

Once again the flash flood

misses the house. And the cats

are not found by the mountain lion—

 

even now they curl on the chair.

The forests around the house

are not claimed by wildfire.

 

And though my right inner arm

bears a dozen red bites,

none of the mosquitos seem

 

to be carrying zica.

Yes, it’s a marvelous night,

just think how many things

 

are going right. Not one

broken bone. No earthquake.

No angry bear. It’s enough to

 

make you think you’re lucky

no matter what that letter said.

Just look at those stars

 

and that clear night sky

without even a chance of hurricane,

no tornado, no drought.

 

 

 

 

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Despite the Bad News

 

 

after Sometimes by Sheenagh Pugh

 

 

It happens, sometimes. Though rain was predicted,

the sun invites itself to your outdoor party.

And sometimes, though you were afraid

to say something difficult, you say it, and

the words turn to wine in your mouth.

And sometimes, as you run toward your dream,

you don’t trip and fall. In fact, the wind nearly

lifts you, supporting your back. Yes, it can happen,

you feel alone and a friend arrives. With a bottle of whiskey.

And another arrives with dark chocolate. And

another arrives with a poem full of water.

And another arrives with nothing but

her big, open heart. And sometimes

when you say a prayer for someone to heal,

they do. Sometimes, that someone is you.

 

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Pray the road is long.

—C.P Cavafy, “Ithaka”

 

 

Sometimes it’s like this—

the journey to yourself is not

creeping barefoot on sharp rocks

nor crawling through the desert,

nor being pummeled by hail in steep territory—

yes, sometimes, though you’re wind-whipped

and sun-flushed and sandy and wearing borrowed shoes,

a new friend will meet you

just as you are and say,

I have an idea—

and will pull the brown dust covers off

of a shapely heap in the corner of the garage

to reveal a neoclassic Excalibur Phaeton,

impossibly shiny and shamelessly black

with a silver sword ornament agleam on the hood,

a cream leather interior

and a 5.0-liter engine—

and even though you don’t know what that last part means,

you know that the only right answer

is yes, please.

Yes, sometimes, the journey

to yourself comes with a chauffeur and

a guide who tell you stories as you ride

and both insist you need ice cream,

you choose salt caramel,

then they buy you fine chocolates

for tomorrow’s road—

and the fireflies come out

like the small miracles they are

making the sparkles they’ve evolved to make,

and the rain doesn’t come

and the night smells like roses,

yes, sometimes the journey is just like that.

 

 

 

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Odd Luck

an h-poem for Lian Canty’s Alphabet Menagerie

If you are lucky in this life,
you will find hearts everywhere you go—
hiding in full sun in the leaves of the hollyhocks,
or tucked into brambles, or rising up
when you hold your hand out to a friend.

And if you are lucky,
your heart will break, not just tiny cracks,
but huge fractures, wide enough
for a hippopotamus to swim through,
high enough for a hawk to circle inside.

Then, the heart can no longer believe
it is separate, beating only for itself.
Only after it is broken can it find in itself every form—
from the silver herring to the great blue heron
to the red hibiscus to the hermit crab.

In Asia they bring loved ones pink hydrangeas
to say, “You are the beat of my heart.”
If you are lucky, you offer hydrangeas
to every creature you see—the hummingbird,
the rattlesnake, the man across the street.

A horseshoe is lucky if you hang it
open side up, but not as lucky as an open heart
which is always ready for love. And if it is
too difficult to ask the world to break you,
then just wait, and whisper frequently, “Thank you, thank you.”

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There between the tortillas
and the frozen okra,
an old friend.
How is it possible
to love someone so much
but to forget that we love them
until quite by accident
we see them again?
Lucky for me,
I needed to buy tortillas,
and there they were, on sale,
our favorite brand.
There are many kinds of luck,
each like a rope
that rings a different bell.
Falling in love again
with an old dear friend,
even if the reunion lasts
only until the end of aisle two,
I feel in these three minutes like a little girl
pulling the rope of the cathedral
bells, and letting myself
be swung by the full body chime
as it dongs, dongs, dongs.

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Five Accidents

my whole life
preparing me for this moment—
10:19 p.m.

*

rolling down my window
to ask directions, hearing
a chorus of birds

*

new snow on the grass
this, too, the scent
of exploded stars

*

please, I said
to the sun, don’t go
some part of me
reveling in asking
the impossible

*

my whole life
preparing me for this moment—
10:20 p.m.

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