It's the Smallest Things

Totem by Joe David, 
Tla o qui aht artist and carver

It's the smallest things.....

after days of overcast skies,

it's blue and cloudless overhead.

I go out first thing to take

sips of water to the flowering pots,

open all the windows to

the cool morning air against

the heat of the day.

It's my cup of morning tea,

a ritual of 50 years, watching it steep.

Over 18,000 teabags in a lifetime.

Twinings are best.

It's smiling at people going past

with their dogs, knowing tomorrow

there will be more, all turning their heads
as they pass the Woman with the Treats.

It's walking into town, where my eyes

bless the shops, the water, the small

bouncing boats, and the rounded

womanly slopes of Wanachus-Hilthuuis.

It's the smallest things that bring us

comfort - keeping our eyes open

to the beauty and the wonder,

even though we know

about the climate crisis;

we keep up with the news,

and so much of it is bad. We know

what we know, and it is hard to bear.

But, for now, there is no

state of emergency,
at least, not right here,
and, as we know only too well,
one day we might be looking back

thinking how much we

took this for granted -

ordinary days.

We fall back on the beauty,  
the small things that

comprise the goodness of life,

ours still to enjoy with gratitude:

that I woke up still alive,

for eyes that opened this morning

that still can see, for knees that ache

but still gingerly hold me up,

for the beach calling to me

with its siren song

in this place where I
the most belong.

Gratitude,

      gratitude,

           gratitude
is my existential song.

The things we thought so small

are the big things, after all.

Different for each one of us, the Lego blocks that build our lives.

for my prompt at What's Going On: Ordinary Things