Thanksgiving’s behind us (minus leftovers), but we gotta stretch that gratitude like gravy, baby. I hope your chronic-illness tinted holiday was warming, nourishing and peaceful. I pushed it a bit too hard but got some connection and cookies, which was worth the surplus symptoms.

Now here’s a poem about now being enough.

Untitled

I am in the bed

My wife sleeps next to me

My daughter, in her room, dreams

One cat under the covers, the other on top

All warm and safe in this moment, only

The one that matters most, always.

This is how I count my blessings

One being at a time

in her place, out of the night-cold rain

and if troubled by a nightmare

would wake knowing she is not alone

in the dark.

A gratitude list far beyond my childhood imaginings

with stakes so high

I lie in the dark staring up at the summit

knowing just a shifting wind

can fell it all around me.

But in this moment, the only one

They are breathing in their beds

And I know I could aim higher

for happiness, perhaps

a false guarantee against calamity

but it seems too much to expect

of this moment

so I listen to their sleeping sounds

and silence

knowing it’s enough.

Share