Gratitude is the Sun
The muse is back!
Gratitude is the Sun
Gratitude is the soft pad
Of a cat's paw
On a subtle mission
It's the staying with
Streaks of anguish
That coat the insides
It's the courage to rage
At a silent God
Who's abandoned you
It's the strength to hold
Hands with the griever
And not try to fix it
It's the patience to abide
In uncertainty
And call it mystery
It's the dream barely
Touching memory
That hints at a message
It's the willingness to taste
Bites of small wonder
And say "Maybe..."
Gratitude is the sun
Holding the sky together
Behind all of it
-Abigail Somma****
Here I am again to trying to make sense of gratitude. Blame Gratitude Buddies.
(Actually don’t blame it - join it! We’re a community of lovely, solid people - building connections and helping each other out in the best ways. Basic membership is free and who knows- someone cool may get in touch.)
So back to this poem - and gratitude. The holy mission. In my anguish, I hated gratitude and Gratitude Buddies, and then I think I passed through this… and I saw the holiness in my anguish.
That moment when you fall down and rabidly curse the skies - that’s a holy moment. We got it all wrong - we thought that was our weakness… but that’s our holiness. And perhaps the whole point of being in it was to see that it was holy. To collapse the duality. The moment of anguish, doubt, disgust - it’s all the holy path.
And so, it is my gratitude - another version of love. Now I’m not saying go punch someone in the face and call it holy… I’m only saying that the love that underpins everything is there too, like the sun. You can punch a million people in the face and it won’t extinguish the sun. Nor will it make you less holy.
Oh life, how you enchant with your mysteries….
Ps, those who know me, know my departed mother came back as a hummingbird. (True:)
The night before this poem made an appearance in my psyche, I dreamt of an amorphous shape and watched it merging into form, ultimately becoming the outline of a hummingbird. I forgot about it until the next day, when scrolling through social media, and I saw a picture of hummingbird.
Oh yes, that dream from last night…