On Gratitude and Wonder

 

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 became 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 my prompt at What's Going On? Gratitude, which posts at 11 a.m. eastern time on Wednesday. Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends. We count our blessings, one, two, three, four. I wrote this poem before the latest bombs started falling. I struggle to find words for the state of humanity at the moment, so will let this poem stand , for the sake of the things I am always grateful for. But hard to wax poetic on gratitude this particular week. I will write a more relevant poem soon, if I can muster the words.