Gratitude

What a privilege it is
To get out of bed each day--
Or to have a bed to awake from,
Or to have a fresh day--
A day no man you could ever read about in history
Could ever live to see.

What a great chance it is
To be able to leave home--
To experience the freedom of stepping out
From shelter
Into the world--
That we might merely only consider
The trapped, the lonely, or the confused a concept--
To even have a home to leave
Or a place to call or consider your own.

What a chance we have
To taste
To eat
Or to know you may soon eat,
Or even choose not to,
But to have that choice be ours--
Or to share a meal with others
To bless them with our presence
While they bless us with theirs,
Enjoying an essential shared simplicity.

What a blessing it is
To have a friend,
Or to know someone who cares--
To have something in common,
To see things the same way--
Or to have someone else
To experience a moment
Or even a life with.

What a blessing it is
To truly see yourself,
To evaluate
To reflect
To believe
That you have something to share,
And to have confidence it's worth sharing--
What a blessing it is
To have the courage
To show your face each day.

What a blessing it is to have a pursuit to enjoy,
Or a way to afford time,
And a capacity to spend it,
Along with some energy,
In a way
That makes the soul smile--
To have talent come naturally
Or the patience to develop one that doesn't--
Or to just have something with meaning to do
For long enough to forget about life and troubles for a while.

What an opportunity it is
To take a much needed break,
Or to even have something so great
Yet so inessential
That it's worth taking a break from--
To sit instead of stand,
Or to waltz instead of lying about--
To even have a space to belong,
And to take up that space in comfort.

What a privilege it is to exist in Fall,
To see the colors
And hear the earth quietly sing--
To feel the sun's warmth,
Or to even feel at all.
For where some ought to feel,
A simple numbness instead.

What a privilege it is
To have eyes to close,
A nose to plug--
A heart that will stop
And a brain that will quit,
Someday when it's used all it could--
And a blessing it is
To hope and assume (with fingers crossed)
We'll make it to the Big Sleep in comfort after all.

Truly what a blessing
Even in the highest anxieties
And the pains of life,
To not truly wonder if tomorrow will bring death
Or to not to need to think of death daily,
But that we may if we so choose--
Truly, what a gift from god.

What a blessed day it is
To exist,
Or to want to exist,
Or to know we may cease to exist
At any time we so choose--
But that the blessings of our existence
To ourselves and to others
Carry us to soldier on.

What a sublime experience
To feel our soul touched,
To hear a song reach through you
And resonate from within--
Or to ever hear a song,
Or to have a heart that may be touched.

What a grace it is
To be able to think--
To have emotions to consider,
And connections to make--
To revel in the chance
To consider and ponder and guess,
To assume and to inquire
Why the world works as so.

What an opportunity it is
To see the world in a way
That makes us wish it were better--
To hope for an improved state,
To change ourselves--
To encounter the difficult
So we can experience the world's peace.

What a great day it is
To experience even one beauty--
Or to exercise your body
Or mind
Or rights--
To fight
To work
To have
To be
To know
To remember
To love
To serve
To wait
To build--

What a blessing it is
To be able to see your blessings,
And not be able to count them--
To know that life can be hard,
But to still know
You've got
Enough.