Thanksgiving

No...I'm not confused about which holiday this is.  :-)  It's just that it seems only fitting to go into a new calendar year with gratitude.  So... today I offer thanks

• For my Gentle Readers, which have doubled in number since last year, so I can no longer thank you individually -- but you know who you are!  Your comments, support and encouragement are a real boon to an artist living -- ahem -- in the boonies.

• For my friends and acquaintances -- over the 'net and 'up close and personal'.

• For my children, who continue to amaze me.

• For my hamlet-home, cozy in autumn and winter and glorious in spring and summer, a continual source of inspiration for my work.

• For the health, strength and joy with which to do that work.

• For enough to share and life to share it: both gifts to take me into this next year.

• For the Creator Who makes it all possible.

Now we are awake

and now we are come together

and now we are thanking the Lord.

This is easy,

for the Lord is everywhere.

He is in the water and the air,

He is in the very walls.

He is around us and in us.

He is the floor on which we kneel.

We make our songs for him

as sweet as we can

for his goodness,

and, lo, he steps into the song

and out of it, having blessed it,

having recognized our intention,

having awakened us, who thought we were awake,

a second time,

having married us to the air and water,

having lifted us in intensity,

having lowered us in beautiful amiability,

having given us

each other, 

and the weeds, dogs, cities, boats, dreams

that are the world.

- from Her Grave, Again - Part 7 - Matins

published in What Do We Know: Poems & Prose Poems

Mary Oliver, Da Capo Press, Cambridge, MA, USA 2002