Gratitude
I celebrated a BIG birthday in August.
My favorite gift was a gratitude journal. Page after page is filled with words I’m grateful to know and use.
Here’s a small list:
- joy
- cerulean
- cumulus
- luminous
- slide
- persevere
- light
- endure
- solemn
- luscious
My gratitude list includes poets, musicians, family, health, community, mountains, rivers creeks, and the list goes on.
I began to search for poems of gratitude. e.e. cummings came to mind immediately; a poem I quote at any and all occasions: “i thank you god for most this amazing day.” This is as good as it gets.
I sign my books, “With Gratitude.” What else is there to say? Someone’s going to read my words and I am grateful. What does a writer need, other than to be read?
I am grateful for the sound of words. Read this aloud. Listen to the sound of Annie Dillard’s poetic voice from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
“Today is one of those excellent January partly cloudies in which light chooses an unexpected part of the landscape to trick out in gilt, and then shadow sweeps it away. You know you’re alive.”
Esther De Waal, in her book, Lost In Wonder, writes about gifts.
“When we fail in wonder we fail in gratitude. The response to wonder is calling attention to the world in order to praise it… When I am fully alive, I look around me with eyes that are open, astonished, and ears that are attentive, and as a result I experience all of life as a gift.” ~ Esther De Waal
In his book, Negative Blue, Charles Wright uses his lexical energy to write of tracing our words upon the air in his poem China Mail. He states, “I think of landscape incessantly.”
A verse from his poem, “The Writing Life.”
Give me the names for things, just give me their real names,
Not what we call them, but what
They call themselves when no one’s listening –
At midnight, the moon-plated hemlocks like unstruck bells,
God wandering aimlessly elsewhere.
Their names, their secret names.
~ Charles Wright
For these gifts, we are grateful. I believe our poetry, letters, columns in magazines like Rapid River Magazine, are statements of gratitude. It is a gift to be read.
It is a gift to find our voice. Voice? Write as a listener. Read your work out loud. It makes a difference to me whether I read out loud to myself, or someone else. Our authentic voice is our gift.
Listen to Robert Frost read his work. Your library most likely holds Poetry Speaks, narrated by Charles Osgood, edited by Elise Paschen and Rebekah Presson Mosby. Hear the voices of Sandburg Yeats, Plath, Eliot, Millay, Whitman. Each voice is a gift of authenticity. It’s what we writers search for. It is a reason to be grateful.
One of my favorite voices belongs to poet, William Stafford. He never lets me down. This poem is for those who persevere. Find a red thread. Wrap it around your wrist or ankle as a token of gratitude.
The Way It Is
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
With gratitude, Carol
How to Love This World: Time Together
Saturday, October 24
This creative group will explore Mary Oliver’s words from Spring – There is only one question: How to love this world. We will read from Aldo Leopold, John Muir, Barbara Kingsolver, the Book of Romans, Evelyn Underhill, Mary Oliver, and Hopkins — writers whose work centers on wilderness, ecology and wonder.
We will deepen our connection to the earth as we consider it’s cycles, man’s disruption and desecration, and our memories. We will write, sketch, and photograph during our day together from 11 – 4 at Calvary Episcopal Church, 2840 Hendersonville Road, Fletcher, 28732. Call (828) 684-6266 to sign up, or show up at Calvary! Cost: $20 for the day; $5 for Calvary members.
The old gingkos are waiting for you!