I’ve been thinking a lot about gratitude lately.
While embracing the suffering, fear, uncertainty, and anxiety of these unique days, I have also found myself feeling deep gratitude for the sacred earth, for my health, for a warm home and plenty of food, for the presence of my beloved daughter and wife here at home and the virtual presence of my global community, and the privilege of having the means to connect with them both over the non-local ethers, and via technology.
I am grateful for the relief the earth is getting with this pause in our driving, flying, manufacturing. I am grateful for the many ways neighbors are reaching out to neighbors both locally and across the planet to help in any way we can.
So, this poetry from a poet new to me seemed especially poignant and timely. Please enjoy:
Gratitude, it happens,
needs less room to grow
than one might think—
is able to find purchase
on even the slenderest
of ledges, is able
to seed itself
in even the poorest of soils.
Just today, I marveled
as a small gratitude
took root
in the desert of me—
like a juniper tree
growing out of red rock.
If I hadn’t felt it myself,
I might not
have believed it—
but it’s true,
one small thankfulness
can slip into an arid despair
and with it comes
a change in the inner landscape,
the scent of evergreen.