Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being
Gratitude, like love, is part of being,
Remaining when all else is left behind,
Absurd and yet quite natural, a yearning
To give to light the worship of the wind.
In gratitude we find a gift worth giving
To something that no gift can serve at all,
Unburdening ourselves of unspent feeling
Dammed behind a thick and willful wall,
Else cut off by reason from our awe.
I Look Across
I look across
The palm of God's great hand
And see the peace
That underlies my pain.
No tragic loss
Or grief can be so grand.
Through life's short lease
Such sights our hearts sustain.
Thank You for All That You Have Given
Thank you for all that you have given:
Happiness and terror, love and death,
Agony and pleasure, pulse and breath,
Night's monstrous dreams, by lusts and longings driven,
Knowledge, hope, despair, and ecstasy.
You gave us, us, by pain and passion riven,
One brief, bright burst of need and glory. Yet,
Unsatisfied, we hunger more to be.
Thank You for the Gift of Life
Thank you for the gift of life,
For letting me be me,
For all that I can know by words
And all that I can see,
For all the music I can hear
And all the songs I sing,
For all the joy that comes to me
And all the joy I bring,
For all the food that I can taste
And all the sweet scents smell,
For all the loved ones I can touch,
Who love and wish me well,
For all the beauty of the world,
Ever fresh and new,
I don't know whom else I can thank,
And so I'm thanking you.
Thanksgiving Is a Moment to Remember
Thanksgiving is a moment to remember
How little we can do to move the stars.
All we are and have we must surrender,
Nor is Earth less inscrutable than Mars.
Knowing this, we know the need for friends
Sharing both our pleasures and our pain,
Giving, though it may not serve their ends,
In joy the love that will our love sustain.
Very much like water in a lake,
In sum we serve as mirrors to the sky.
No one alone can heaven's picture take.
Given friends, we know the reason why.
Thanksgiving Is a Time for Giving Thanks
Thanksgiving is a time for giving thanks;
However, the reception's not so clear.
As we pass the drumsticks or the shanks,
No Maker holds such severed flesh less dear.
Kindness is a requisite for grace;
So must we be to all that suffer pain.
Gratitude seems slightly out of place
In places where compassion is less plain.
Very few this day will give much thought
In passing to the creatures that they eat.
Nor will we feel the empathy we ought,
Given that we are ourselves but meat. |
The Gift of Being Cannot Be a Given
The gift of being cannot be a given:
How many trillion accidents made me?
And yet it seems no accident to be,
Nor seem I less the driver than the driven.
Knowledge cannot penetrate my freedom,
So absolute it seems I am that am.
God may or not exist, but sovereign,
I seem to rule by will my rotting kingdom.
Very little that it seems, it seems,
Is what it is: the being and glory,
Nor can I be the author of my story,
Graced to witness truths beyond my dreams.
Tides Return the Favors They Have Taken
Tides return the favors they have taken,
Having had sufficient time to turn.
All enjoy more riches than they earn,
Nor need surrender what they have forsaken.
Kindness, like a candle caught in mirrors,
Sees itself in infinite regress,
Giving that keeps giving its largesse,
Imitating what it has been given.
Vast and bountiful, creation shimmers,
Intimate in ways we cannot know.
Nor do we fail to glean more than we sow,
Granted light that glows down to its embers.
To Live Is to Be Prey
To live is to be prey. Meals for microbes.
Horror hangs in the blood like a barracuda
As packs of ravenous viruses howl at the moon.
No flesh is but food. Fierce hunger waits at the crossings
Knowing nothing but lust for the taste of our gristle,
Singing hallelujahs to the Lord.
Give thanks, then, too, for the gift of robust hunger;
In humble gratitude, for the legacy of lust.
Vividly we live and die, our suffering
In perfect harmony with our feeding frenzy;
Nor can we be else but both murderers and murdered,
Grateful for the unsought grace of being.
To Thank You Is a Gift One Gives Oneself
To thank you is a gift one gives oneself,
Having felt the fullness of one's being.
As you might--or not--be listening,
None knows more than his own gratitude.
Knowledge is beside the point, the gulf
So wide between us there's no hope of seeing.
Gifts require givers, so one sings
In thanks that in oneself some grace might move.
Vast quantities of thanks lie on the shelf
In wait for a fresh faith that might be freeing.
Nor ought one hold one's thanks until some bell rings,
Giving one an object for one's love.
When God's as Real as Santa Claus
When God's as real as Santa Claus,
And temples are works of art;
When the Bible's living literature,
And the Universe has no heart:
One feels grateful,
But to whom?
When the ritual vestments of faith
Are seen only from outside;
And the strength to live in the void
Becomes a matter of pride:
One feels grateful,
But to whom?
When life seems bursting with beauty,
But everything's accidental;
When calling the noumenal "Thou"
Seems impossibly sentimental:
One feels grateful,
But to whom?
When death is an absolute end,
And pain lets one barely get by;
Prayer's a harmless delusion
And the solace of heaven a lie:
One still feels grateful,
But to whom?
This human urge to say thank you,
Unavoidably orphic,
Requires, just for a moment,
A Creator, anthropomorphic:
So that one can feel grateful
To Whom.
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