GIVING THANKS

The old dog is snoring like an oboe.  We have so much

comfort, so much gratitude.  But a large piece of wind

plays me the anguish of people like long-distance calls,

 

extinguished in a midnight vigil where no moon rises,

where daylight is an infinity away.  Maybe hope rests,

tingling, in a different neighborhood, one of unknown

 

zip code. It’s harsh, isn’t it, to keep war’s terrible face

in mind as we share a magnificent meal of plenty

and grace as all the suffering in the world clamors below

 

every forkful in our home.  The sleeping dog

moans.  If I were a person of shallow religion I might quote

unfounded platitudes here about “working in mysterious

 

ways” or “everything happens for a reason”

as videos are blurred so all of us screen-watchers

drift past the horrors like a susurration of so many starlings.

 

Can we grasp the entire picture? This is how we have to do it

in America, with mouths full of unblinking compassion.

With holes in our collective stockings of serving ourselves first.

With hearts the size of suffering nations holding onto every

beat toward peace.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023

 

The Harp of Summer

In the meadow the orchard grass

stands tall as July, tickling the belly

of a glad old rescue horse.

 

I lift my face to the light, eyes closed,

but I can still see.  The red color of life

illuminates my eyelids, my own circulation

sharing what it feels like to speak

with the noonday sun.

I will drink this good glowing light.  I will

inhale it to survive the unspoken hardships.

 

The great harp of summer, the insects and birds,

resounds with silver glissandi.  The velvet grass

bends to the wind like I lean to your speech,

faint and a little garbled.  You had a

stroke; you still haven’t accepted that

six years later.

 

But the whispering leaves still unwrinkle their glory.

The green apples are hopeful syllables clustering

on the old Gravenstein.  Some have already fallen.

But we are still here together. The sun plays upon us

evenly.  Pushing your chair, we come out into

that grand orchestra of life.

I can hear gratitude somewhere inside me.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023

 

  

You are in My Circle

To Karl A.

 

You wore your grief unseen like

your skeleton: always there but never

directly in view unless you know the landmarks

to watch for after your true love dies.

 

What was it like, your passing?  Did it quietly ring with

Amazing Grace going on ahead?  Did you lean out

of your body, moving like clouds announcing a storm?

Was it like a math equation, never anything

but fixed and perfect?

 

Wherever and whatever you are, (or perhaps

you are undefinable) I am drawing a circle

of gratitude wide enough to encompass your compassion,

all your great glad works lighting our hearts, and more,

I am drawing the hoops and loops that humble and hold us in unity,

to invite one to kindness, to sow peace in an unpeaceful world,

and to affirm that you are magnificently loved

like numbers love their own square root.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, ⓒ 2022

CLOAK

My gratitude

is a thick warm cloak

but first I must remember

out of the tangled night

to pull it on.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2021

The Tally of the Days

What does 60 years get you

but the thrumming tides of a heart

almost too full of thanks

to keep beating?

Sometimes these todays,

sometimes the click of years gone by

seem like a cryptic wound where

pain lives, hidden deep in your roots  –

you feel at once the burdens,

the joys and levity of life like flowers before

the rational mind ever notices.

Looking back, I welcome them

equally.

Be careful where you walk –

Love has spilled over when and where-

ever our shadows met and touched,

even almost 60 years later.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 4/8/2019

NaPoWriMo day #8

DRAB

       That gray and brown junco

crouching plain as sand in the

winter-nude branch of the quince

never gets the compliments.

I mean, really, who ever says

“Your being drab is so lovely”?

Bindweed, the morning glory:

you dig and toil to rid your garden of it.

Do you ever see how glorious it is

all on its own, it’s pale and artful face

revolving to the sunrise?

Those small tan slugs sliding

through the strawberry leaves:

I bet you never thanked them 
for their thoughtful
recycling of organic matter.  Earth does.

See the junco in her shaded perfection.

Marvel at the bindweed in its unfolding.

Thank the slugs, for they remake the world.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2019