I'll Take Everything

 

This long journey has brought me

tears and laughter, hard times, and

golden times. It brought me Brock and Friends,

who led me out of a Siberia of the heart

into the sunshine. It brought me ten years 

by the sea in the place of my dreams:

wild waves, old growth forests,

the blockades of '93, a black wolf puppy.

It brought me heartbreak when I had to leave

such joy behind. And joy when life
brought me back again.
 It has brought me struggle

and how to grow a never-give-up heart.

It has taught me to Be the Observer 

of other peoples' jangly stuff. My heart

whispers: let it be. Time is the great teacher.

(My time is short. They may not learn

until after I am gone, but this is

their journey to make, as I make mine.)

Today, though I wish it otherwise,

brings a terrible war across the sea:

genocide, horror, sorrow, suffering

from which we cannot turn away.

(If they can live it, we can bear witness.)

Today also brings springtime blossoms,

another wolf-dog fixing me
with his pale blue eyes,

a bear wandering through the trails,

awaiting berries. A deer is nibbling
at the bird feeder, waiting for
the grass to grow. Across the sea,
under the same sky,
bombs are falling on grandmothers
and babies. Dogs cower in corners,
shivering violently, as the missiles hit.
Somewhere else, there are fields
full of baby lambs.

In poems, joy and sorrow are mates.

In a poem, it doesn't matter that my thoughts

bounce from light to dark and back again.

It is all life, in this aging body that's

bending towards the earth. Even the infirmities

are blessings; it is a privilege to still be here,

still traveling. This is the deal:

we never know what spoonful will be served

to us next. But we say, with faith and hope:

I'll take everything on the menu.

Inspired by Everything On the Menu by Ellen Bass. The italicized lines are hers.