Thursday, November 26, 2009

The grateful

a poem
by Erica Mazzeo

There are so many reasons
not to be grateful.
To make the choice, to turn your head
and pretend to look the other way.
There are things like:
deserts, uphill climbs, walled in gardens and
mudslides.
Torrential downpour, a frozen tundra, pain, fear.

But when you find a way to catapult
over the wall - stop and taste the cool rain on your tongue.
To crawl through the desert thirsty but fearless -
then you've found gratitude.

It's usually amidst all of lifes junk.
Tucked away and hidden
- retreated like a treasure we must find.
So we take out our shovels, drills and cranes,
head lamps and giant raincoats - hoping to
extract the point of the story or
excavate the minor detail we must have overlooked.

Even after searching last Christmas to
and fro, for the perfect gifts --
in a moment of panic a young indian clerk rang me up
explaining how his family was not around
this holiday season.
He said "..how lucky your family all together at one dinner table."
I replied, "ah....such stress..."
and he just sort of laughed to himself, nodded his head at the register,
and as he handed me my receipt he said,
"Merry Christmas Ms."

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