This Is The Sound Of Gratitude

A Thanksgiving Prayer

This is my home.

This is where I eat, sleep

and enjoy my family.

For years I had no home.

How can I be anything less

than weak-kneed with gratitude

that I have a home?

This is my wife and best friend.

For years I was alone, I had no friends,

I had no wife.

How can I be less than joyful?

How can I crumble in fear before tiny things,

before bills, pieces of paper that are paid anyway,

no matter my silly quavering?

This is my heart.

For years it was closed and fought its constraints

because it was afraid to trust.

It was a sad heart, for the heart is not meant

to be closed.

How can I do less then celebrate the change in me?

I am connected in family that I never expected,

my heart works as it should, to make bonds of love.

This is my mind. This is where I think about life’s mysteries,

this is where I hone skills as a warrior hones his blade.

I must rejoice for my mind has a purpose and is happy in its work.

This is my soul, which is invisible and always changing.

I have no doubt my soul exists. I would not be sitting here

pouring these words from the pitcher of my life

if my soul were not behind them.

These are the deep things of soil and sky,

of cooling winds in the evening, of enjoyment of my brother,

the Bear, and my cousin, The Raven, and my wayward niece,

The Peach.

This is the life in which the angel Gabriel tumbles like a puppy

and the hosts of god sing in the trees.

For all these things, I am weak-kneed with gratitude.