In Gratitude

In Gratitude

The wind thanks you, unfurling over the worn horizon

so it can billow into night. The stars too, whether talismans

of light dying or just being born, behind the small birds

arriving or staying behind, who balance gratefully

on thin branches of the coming winter. The squirrel

in the field, the hidden fox, the mammals under and over

ground, find a way out of no way. The world is composed,

is composing itself, anew even in a narrow time: flashes

of red on a gray day just before the red-winged blackbird

folds back in silhouette. Whatever act of kindness flies

lands in the heart of a moment, a seasonal marker

to illuminate why we live, a song of gratitude.