Greetings to all those thankful for poetry. I know--and I hope you know--that Ross Gay's phenomenal collection is actually called CATALOG OF UNABASHED GRATITUDE, but today he's going to help me express gratitude for all kinds of change, even the hard ones.
catalog of unabashed change
Friends, bear with me today,
for I am making an experiment
from simple things which are not
the dream of a robin but like a sprawling
of vines that have invaded but also wind us in with their remarkable vigor,
so many symbols
telling me
in no uncertain terms
to tendril forth
a proposition of attention,
a red-light vigilance thrumming behind my eyes
which is also delight within the halo of my ribcage
winding and raveling and reeling me
into a mission, should I choose to accept it,
with a life-and-death ripening
explosion of imperfect solutions,
“should I choose”--
and who among us could ignore such
an invitation to complexity?
Hear ye! Hear ye! I am here
to hunker down on my knees in the grass the gutter the gravel
to spell it out for us
again and again
how the normal passage of
hourly annual geologic time is continuing its rounds
steady as ever with its glowing sunsets
and weathering leaves and twiggy entropy,
so many of the natural things steady
in the habits that make us gasp
with seasonal joy,
say in the form of a pumpkin
which makes us want to stay alive even, thank you;
and thank you
for not letting us forget how how simultaneously
nothing is normal, just look around
at all the bugs that no longer accompany us on the windshield
of our daily driving,
and thank you for giving us children
every day, even the 8 billionth
mercy, mercy, thank you
for the medicine that kept that mother alive
oh thank you thank you
for blooming and burning,
and thank you for what inside those children’s
wonder bursts like a wolf in woodchip facepaint
howling into the world,
likely glittering a long contrail
of invention like one named Miles ought,
or, like one named Aurelia ought,
casting bolts of golden inclusion:
“I’ll miss you, August”--oh
thank you
for the way someone admirable steps
to the mic and announces
they will suffer fools with actual weapons
to represent us
muster-blustering into the field;
and thank you, friends, when next spring
everything that fell
spiky or sticky or swollen
will regenerate itself thank you very much
with no help from us
when that translucent hope that maybe
we have not already f*cked everything up
will cause me to
fall down crying,
when I see that the bee
has pollinated the melon,
and when I see that
Bill 13-22 Electrify New Buildings has passed
and that glacially
we are rethinking everything,
how we’re trying.
And thank you, too. Thanks for the
board or the lectern or the page I have put you on.
Here is a statistic.
Put on these comfy shoes
and take an electrolyte tablet for your
water bottle, dear one,
for I know this is going to be long, and hard.
I can’t stop
my gratitude, which includes, dear reader,
you, for sticking it out with me,
for puzzling along with my
porcelain berries and the tech logos
and the bruised banana and the cell tower.
Here is a bowl of soup. I have stirred change into it.
And thank you for the shadow of a chance
glancing over these words as I write them,
for the way the unremembered elephant
in the room keeps arriving garlanded with loops of apple peel
which, oh, might be your one reason
to carry your soapbox all the way down to the orchard,
just that one beauty of apples,
or the simple hand-cranking of an ingenious peeler
(and ask how its components were made).
And thank you, again, for the true kindness
with which you type, patiently, what a rich post, thanks for the link,
we’re doing that in my neighborhood too.
I appreciate it.
I am excitable, judgmental.
I am sorry. Mercy oh mercy I am grateful.
I’m putting all my effort into
holding on more loosely,
into kneeling quietly in the grass the gutter the gravel,
into just lightly touching your feed
with something teetering
between process and product,
between purple aster flowers
and legibility, between digital snips
and the one I am scared to try,
the six letters poured out in gasoline and lit on literal fire
meaning it’s much worse than we think,
and sooner; to which I say
what do you think all these little placards of art are,
other than loving
what every second goes away?
Slow down, I mean to say. Stay.
Friends,
I hope I am not too loud.
I hope I am loud enough.
And thank you.
Ruth is our host today at There is no such thing as a godforsaken town--more unabashed gratitude!
