So Thankful

Today's trip to town, feeling blue and down,
body hurting, wishing I wasn't going.
Wishing only to sleep the pain away
on a tide of sleep that will not come.

Caught then in the web of beauty
of green, and flowers, and life.
Stopped to let a spotty fawn cross,
and counted flowers in bloom just now,
and pondered love, and why it is so hard
when it is so natural, and is all we wish.

In town, smiles and courtesy
sweet country people that I love
who love me back so easily. Then

Coming home, counting flowers again,
knowing so many are in bloom I have
no hope of remembering them all and

The first black cohosh. For which I live
from year to year just to see for its brief weeks
Radiant candles in the green light.
And took that road, slowly, watching for its spots
its beloved corners. White luminous spikes in the
understory. Always in shade. Taller, often than
I am. Seeks no company. A subtle flower, that.
A woman's plant, in all ways.

And slowing for the white-tail mother, still
clad in summer red, and the small fat gray
Whistlepig, remember also, for once, to say:


Thank you
Thank you
Then tears of joy
not sorrow