by James Crews
narrow where it borders
the farm house and horse pens.
Think, how beyond the open gate,
the stroke fattens, traveling
upward into the dark
scrawl of live oak and bay.
See how the light
is a tender wash. Under
your feet, sand that once
cradled a sea. Blue-bellies skitter,
scritching like tiny scribes
among the leaves. Think
how little ink is required to write
three million years.
After the climb, the view,
the final loop. You pass the houses
of sleeping wood rats, the pond,
glassine slashed with cattails.
Now, before getting into your car,
consider with what ease
the rise and fall of robin song
can erase a certain ache,
the day’s gathering premonitions.
Laura Grace Weldon
Compost Happens
Nature teaches nothing is lost.
It’s transmuted.
Spread between rows of beans,
last year’s rusty leaves tamp down weeds.
Coffee grounds and banana peels
foster rose blooms. Bread crumbs
scattered for birds become song.
Leftovers offered to chickens come back
as eggs, yolks sunrise orange.
Broccoli stems and bruised apples
fed to cows return as milk steaming in the pail,
as patties steaming in the pasture.
Surely our shame and sorrow
also return,
composted by years
into something generative as wisdom.
Joan Mazza
Part of the Landscape
An old wooden bench, aging gray, colonized
by moss, liverworts, and lichens that drape
the surface, where I rest along my woodland
walks, wear clothes to match the earthy landscape—
grays and greens and browns, a mottled muddle
so I don’t stand out. After two weeks, crows
don’t scream to warn the neighborhood, but huddle
with their kind to chat. As still as possible,
I am a rock, a tree. Nothing flees from me.
Near my head, a golden crowned kinglet, smaller
than a chickadee or chipping sparrow.
I hold still, photograph this world with just
my eyes, forget the news. My heart is here,
filled with gratitude as I fade and disappear.
Andrea Potos
Essential Gratitude
Sometimes it just stuns you
like an arrow flung from some angel’s wing.
Sometimes it hastily scribbles
a list in the air: black coffee,
thick new books,
your pillow’s cool underside,
the quirky family you married into.
It is content with so little really;
even the ink of your pen along
the watery lines of your dimestore notebook
could be a swiftly moving prayer.
Reflective Pause
The Gratitude List
As Andrea Potos’s “Essential Gratitude” points out, the sensation of appreciation can come out of nowhere and pierce our hearts until we find ourselves making a whole list “in the air” of those everyday things we might otherwise look past or ignore. One of the most potent practices we can adopt is including a gratitude list as part of our journaling or writing practice, in the morning or at night before bed. Turning the mind toward reverence through our writing can ensure that a grateful attitude becomes a habit and follows us wherever we go.
By regularly listing the elements of this ordinary, miraculous life as concrete lines on the page, we ensure that we move through our days looking for reasons to be happy. Potos also reminds us that saying a simple thank you can be its own kind of prayer, whether it happens out loud or follows “the watery lines of your dimestore notebook.”
Invitation for Writing and Reflection
The next time a sudden feeling of appreciation “stuns” you, take the time to write out your own gratitude list as soon as possible. When you pay attention, what specific sensory details about this grateful moment stand out to you as worthy of praise?
Laura Foley
Gratitude List
Praise be this morning for sleeping late,
the sandy sheets, the ocean air,
the midnight storm that blew its waters in.
Praise be the morning swim, mid-tide,
the clear sands underneath our feet,
the dogs who leap into the waves,
their fur, sticky with salt,
the ball we throw again and again.
Praise be the green tea with honey,
the bread we dip in finest olive oil,
the eggs we fry. Praise be the reeds,
gold and pink in the summer light,
the sand between our toes,
our swimsuits, flapping in the breeze.
Katherine Williams
The Dog Body of My Soul
Some days I feel
like a retriever
racing
back and forth
fetching the tired
old balls
the universe
tosses me.
Some days
I’m on a leash
following
someone else’s
route,
sensing
I’m supposed
to be grateful.
Some days
I’m waiting
in a darkened
house
bladder insistent
not knowing
when my people
will return.
But some days
I hurl myself
into the sweet
stinging surf,
race wildly back
and roll
in the sand’s
warm welcome.
Katie Rubinstein
Scratch, Sniff
It was weeks ago now
that first September I spent here on this island,
still hot and balmy.
I wanted a scratch and sniff for you,
some clever little corner of the screen
so I could share this most perfect thing:
the smell of beach roses, all briney.
They were abundant outside of the cottage,
and each time I passed, I wondered how I’d gotten so lucky—
that they became like dandelions in my life.
Hardy, scrappy and perfectly soft all at the same time,
nestled in their rocky, sandy homes, smelling like heaven—
those round, round hips.
I wanted to eat them, be them,
and I wanted you to smell them
as if sharing them would somehow
exponentially increase the delight
or make the sense more real.
But it was mine alone
and exquisite all the same.
Mary Elder Jacobsen
Summer Cottage
I’m halfway through a day
that began like a gift
in a blue china eggcup
set on the table before me
by my grandma at the shore
always awake before sunup
always beginning it for me
her soft tap-tap-tapping,
her careful cracking to open
what seemed a rare jewel box
how she raised its little lid
let me peek past the edge
let me see the whole horizon
orbiting the yolk-yellow sun
how brightly it would glisten
hovering there just for me.
Jane Kenyon
Coming Home at Twilight in Late Summer
We turned into the drive,
and gravel flew up from the tires
like sparks from a fire. So much
to be done—the unpacking, the mail
and papers . . . the grass needed mowing . . .
We climbed stiffly out of the car.
The shut-off engine ticked as it cooled.
And then we noticed the pear tree,
the limbs so heavy with fruit
they nearly touched the ground.
We went out to the meadow; our steps
made black holes in the grass;
and we each took a pear,
and ate, and were grateful.
Grace Bauer
Perceptive Prayer
The beauty of summer nights
is how they go on—
light lingering so long we can
imagine ourselves immortal.
For moments at a time.
And winter days—
their own kind of beauty.
Any swatch of color:
hint of leaf bud, sway
of dried brown grass, even litter—
a bright yellow bag
light enough for the breeze
to lift and carry,
can render itself as pleasure
to an eye immersed in gray.
May we learn to love
what is both
ordinary and extra.
May our attention be
a kind of praise.
A worship of the all
there really is.
Patricia Fontaine
Sap Icicles
On the row
of fresh pruned maples
along Bostwick Road
the cold wind
froze sap icicles sideways.
I saw a chickadee
land at an icicle tip,
so I pulled over
and put my tongue
to the cold tears of the tree.
Tasted flint,
tasted maple steam
when it rises off the pan,
tasted the shimmer
pulsing up inside
the cool grey bark
as the sun applies
its long March hands.
The happiest child in me
was tongued to that tree,
while the saddest
grieved the lost limbs.
On the side of the road
we grew up inside
my black coat, became
white-haired,
cared nothing
for the gawping cars.
Lucille Clifton
the lesson of the falling leaves
the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves
Ted Kooser
A Dervish of Leaves
Sometimes when I’m sad, the dead leaves
in the bed of my pickup get up on their own
and start dancing. I’ll be driving along,
glance up at the mirror and there they’ll be,
swirling and bowing, their flying skirts
brushing the back window, not putting a hand
on the top of the cab to steady themselves,
but daringly leaning out over the box,
making fun of the fence posts we’re passing
who have never left home, teasing the rocks
rolled away into the ditches, leaves light
in their slippers, dancing around in the back
of my truck, tossing their cares to the wind,
sometimes, when I’m down in my heart.
James Crews
Winter Morning
When I can no longer say thank you
for this new day and the waking into it,
for the cold scrape of the kitchen chair
and the ticking of the space heater glowing
orange as it warms the floor near my feet,
I know it is because I’ve been fooled again
by the selfish, unruly man who lives in me
and believes he deserves only safety
and comfort. But if I pause as I do now,
and watch the streetlights outside winking
off one by one like old men closing their
cloudy eyes, if I listen to my tired neighbors
slamming car doors hard against the morning
and see the steaming coffee in their mugs
kissing their chapped lips as they sip and
exhale each of their worries white into
the icy air around their faces—then I can
remember this one life is a gift each of us
was handed and told to open: Untie the bow
and tear off the paper, look inside
and be grateful for whatever you find
even if it is only the scent of a tangerine
that lingers on the fingers long after
you’ve finished peeling it.
Tracy K. Smith
The Good Life
When some people talk about money
They speak as if it were a mysterious lover
Who went out to buy milk and never
Came back, and it makes me nostalgic
For the years I lived on coffee and bread,
Hungry all the time, walking to work on payday
Like a woman journeying for water
From a village without a well, then living
One or two nights like everyone else
On roast chicken and red wine.
Marjorie Saiser
Thanksgiving for Two
The adults we call our children will not be arriving
with their children in tow for Thanksgiving.
We must make our feast ourselves,
slice our half-ham, indulge, fill our plates,
potatoes and green beans
carried to our table near the window.
We are the feast, plenty of years,
arguments. I’m thinking the whole bundle of it
rolls out like a white tablecloth. We wanted
to be good company for one another.
Little did we know that first picnic
how this would go. Your hair was thick,
mine long and easy; we climbed a bluff
to look over a storybook plain. We chose
our spot as high as we could, to see
the river and the checkerboard fields.
What we didn’t see was this day, in
our pajamas if we want to,
wrinkled hands strong, wine
in juice glasses, toasting
whatever’s next,
the decades of side-by-side,
our great good luck.
Reflective Pause
The Feast of Each Moment
It’s difficult to resist the social pressure that turns the holidays into an excuse for consumption and a source of stress. Yet in “Thanksgiving for Two,” Marjorie Saiser brings love and acceptance to a situation that might anger or disappoint other parents: Her children will not be coming home for the holiday this year. Even in the first line, she acknowledges that they are adults with lives and children of their own, and we sense a hint of relief that she and her husband will get to “indulge” alone and reminisce about “that first picnic” that led them to this day together. Saiser reminds us that when we “make our feast ourselves,” we transform the holidays back into holy days that focus on joy and deeper connection; we allow the abundance of our lives to roll out “like a white tablecloth,” full of countless blessings laid out for us.
Invitation for Writing and Reflection
Describe a time when you turned what might have been a difficult or disappointing situation into your own feast, making the most of it. What allowed you to generate a thankful, hopeful attitude in those moments, to recognize even the smallest gifts in the midst of a challenge?
Nest
It wasn’t until we got the Christmas tree
into the house and up on the stand
that our daughter discovered a small bird’s nest
tucked among its needled branches.
Amazing, that the nest had made it
all the way from Nova Scotia on a truck
mashed together with hundreds of other trees
without being dislodged or crushed.
And now it made the tree feel wilder,
a balsam fir growing in our living room,
as though at any moment a bird might flutter
through the house and return to the nest.
And yet, because we’d brought the tree indoors,
we’d turned the nest into the first ornament.
So we wound the tree with strings of lights,
draped it with strands of red beads,
and added the other ornaments, then dropped
two small brass bells into the nest, like eggs
containing music, and hung a painted goldfinch
from the branch above, as if to keep them warm.
Ellen Bass
Getting into Bed on a December Night
When I slip beneath the quilt and fold into
her warmth, I think we are like the pages
of a love letter written thirty years ago
that some aging god still reads each day
and then tucks back into its envelope.
Lisa Coffman
Everybody Made Soups
After it all, the events of the holidays,
the dinner tables passing like great ships,
everybody made soups for a while.
Cooked and cooked until the broth kept
the story of the onion, the weeping meat.
It was over, the year was spent, the new one
had yet to make its demands on us,
each day lay in the dark like a folded letter.
Then out of it all we made one final thing
out of the bounty that had not always filled us,
out of the ruined cathedral carcass of the turkey,
the limp celery chopped back into plenty,
the fish head, the spine. Out of the rejected,
the passed over, never the object of love.