GIFTS

[Posted for  Poets United Thursday Think Tank prompt:
Thankfulness. It was written during another season of
gratitude and giving, but seemed
appropriate for today.]

My daughter's heartache
dimmed the lights
this Christmas.
Her raw grief
swamped our craft
and we both
went down.
But the spirit
is meant to try;
Hope lifts our feathers.
We point our noses
forward:
and, one by one,
the healing days
go by.

So yesterday
the sun came out;
the fog had lifted,
trees poking through
the mist
the way I like.
Coffee was on,
John Lennon and I
were singing
War Is Over and
Give Peace a Chance.
Soup was bubbling
on the stove,
the incense wafting.
Music is joy
and my feet
still can dance.

Today I sat
by someone's
dying mother.
How hard
she labored
to take
just one breath,
then another.
My Christmas gift
to God
I had thought
that this would be.
It wound up being
God's Christmas gift
to me.
I walked out
-on my own two legs-
past all the wheelchairs,
past those in bed,
into the falling dark.
Breathing in the fresh air
was a miracle,
the line between
my life and theirs
so stark.

Tonight at the end
of the road
I watched
a heron
lift elegantly
against the winter sky.
My daughter's voice
is growing
ever stronger;
her spirit
is remembering
how to fly.
My inbox
was full of love
as this
welcome
new year starts -
my life's true wealth
is friends
with golden hearts.

Even in pain and grief
-who doesn't have it?-
I remember
to be grateful
every day.
I am in love
with nature
and she is
all around,
so affluence
and plenty -
they abound.

Circling,
endlessly circling
through this stuff,
I make my way,
and I keep on 
coming home
to what's
"Enough".

What we're
looking for
is already
inside us.
What we
focus on
within our life
expands.
What we do
when things
get tough:
haul wood
and carry water,
use our hands
to give to
someone
who has
less than us,
sit with the dying,
remember the living,
write a poem -
assuage the loneliness
of the human heart
by giving.

My daughter, today :)