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.
