ON GRATITUDE AND WONDER

Wickaninnish in blue

If you knew this was your last day,
or week, or month,
how would you spend it?
What would you tell people?
Would you pick up the phone more often,
speak words of love and appreciation?

Would you sit at the shore for hours,
watching the forever waves
endlessly advancing and retreating,
until, behind your eyelids,
they were engraved forever
on your heart?

Here’s how it is:
we have this moment, now.
No more are promised.
The ferryman will come.
We knew this when we bought the ticket.
He will glide beside the dock,
and nod: we will step in.
It will be too late then
to change what might have been.

Here’s what I really want you to know:
I carry it all in my heart: summer days
under my grandma’s weeping willow,
teardrops and song under a teenage moon,
young motherhood, with all the struggle,
and the laughter, all those leggy children
laughing in the sun; I carry it all,
the coming home to myself,
my great leap to the sea,
the big black wolf who taught me
all that love could be.

I carry it all with me: the gifts,
the gratitude, the sorrow,
(for the recipe, my friends,
has always included sorrow.)
It has been more than I ever dreamed,
if not all that it could be.
My heart is full to the brim
with gratitude and wonder,
should I depart Tomorrow.

for Brendan at earthweal where we are giving thanks. Happy Thanksgiving to my friends in the US. Stay safe everyone!