With Gratitude

Ellen Wilson

Poets United

Today, Ellen at  Poets United Wonder Wednesday #14 charges us with posting on our blogs, a poem that we felt was a gift. I am most profoundly grateful today. My daughter was released from the hospital last night and  is doing better. This poem by e.e. cummings was read at my wedding and I thought of it again today.

With gratitude

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

~ e.e. cummings ~

(Complete Poems 1904-1962)

I added one more piece by Laura Hegfield, called Is It Stealing. This piece came to me at a time when I needed to see light and she gave it to me. I have posted it here, but her blog is really beautiful, so please check it out.

Is it stealing God is it stealing?

Crouching down then half kneeling,

one worn denim knee nesting on wintering

weeds gone gold in the fleeting sun o’er a farmer’s

fallow field.

Is it stealing?

Hungrily taking photos

attempts my heart knows are folly,

capturing time through a lens,

digital morsels marking the majesty of a single moment,

then another,

and another.

Nourishing my soul as I feast upon Your bounty,

Is it stealing?

Is it blessing?

Pausing to see with ready attention beauty dying

before my eyes as light departs.  

Observing the luminous globe sinking into the horizon,

sky ribboned lavender, heather, cornflower, fading blue

tears wet joy glide down iced cheeks,

feeling full satisfaction simply, (simply?)

witnessing the wonder of it all.

This act of narrowing expansive awareness into

images that if printed will decay

or stored virtually as pixels will likely be

forgotten

long after the wild grasses have crumbled

the seeds swaddled in soft soil

birthed and re-birthed,

surely more seasons

than I shall live.

Is it blessing God is it blessing?

Crouching down then half kneeling,

one worn denim knee nesting on wintering

weeds gone gold in the fleeting sun o’er a farmer's

fallow field.

Is it blessing?