a thousand beautiful things...

Oh, my Lord, what a morning! Sweet sunlight, cool breezes, burning bushes

ablaze and breakfast on the deck in the autumn stillness. I am trying to practice what I preach - and will share tomorrow morning on the live-streaming gathering - about treasuring gratitude. And then, as if the cosmos thought I needed a gentle but real kick in the pants, I came upon this poem: "Wishing Well" by Gregory Pardlo (You can hear Pádraig Ó Tuama read it @ https://onbeing.

org/poetry/wishing-well/ and it is well worth the effort.)

“Outside the Met a man walks up sun 

tweaking the brim sticker on his Starter cap 

and he says pardon me Old School he 

says you know is this a wishing well? 

Yeah Son I say sideways over my shrug. 

     Throw your bread on the water. 

I tighten my chest wheezy as Rockaway beach 

sand with a pull of faux smoke on my e-cig 

to cozy the truculence I hotbox alone 

and I am at the museum because it is not a bar. 

Because he appears not to have changed 

them in days I eye the heel-chewed hems 

of his pants and think probably he will 

ask me for fifty cents any minute now wait 

for it. A smoke or something. Central Park displays 

the frisking transparency of autumn. Tracing 

paper sky, leaves like eraser crumbs gum 

the pavement. As if deciphering celestial 

script I squint and purse off toward the roof 

line of the museum aloof as he fists two 

pennies from his pockets mumbling and then 

aloud my man he says hey my man I’m going 

to make a wish for you too. 

     I am laughing now so what you want 

me to sign a waiver? He laughs along ain’t 

say all that he says but you do have to 

hold my hand. And close your eyes. 

I make a starless night of my face before 

he asks are you ready. Yeah dawg I’m ready. 

Sure? Sure let’s do this his rough hand 

in mine inflates like a blood pressure cuff and I 

squeeze back as if we are about to step together 

from the sill of all resentment and timeless 

toward the dreamsource of un-needing the two 

of us hurtle sharing the cosmic breast 

of plenitude when I hear the coins blink against

the surface and I cough up daylight like I’ve just 

been dragged ashore. See now 

you’ll never walk alone he jokes and is about 

to hand me back to the day he found me in 

like I was a rubber duck and he says you got to let 

go but I feel bottomless and I know he means 

well though I don’t believe 

     and I feel myself shaking 

my head no when he means let go his hand.”

Annie Lennox and Rumi insist that there are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth with a heart of gratitude. The more I listen - and practice - and honor this truth, the less fear and cynicism I know. And the more I find to be grateful for. Nothing has changed objectively in the body politic, of course, that remains a mess. But now I am living into its fullness rather than just being carried away on the surface of my feelings.