Thankfulness can be a declaration of privilege, of shouting to the heavens, "Look at me and what all I gots." Thankfulness could be like Raymond Carver says, just waiting for the glory of what happens next in a state of wonder. Agog.

Did he who made the swan and the bear make thee? All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful: The Lord God made them all.

A "one-two" jab, right cross combination to the head. I am down for the count.

no poem

written in the morning

darkness

is enough to answer

the kind of question

destined to haunt me

for days

She waits

for the wind

with patience

and breath

while I worry

the wind

will never arrive

Reminds me of William Blake's "The Tyger"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIgV2O-qRws

I have seen this I have seen these spare birds Sparrows Feasting in a furrow of newly plowed ground then with utter seeming joy lift their heads and thrill and shrill.

I love the repetition.

and re-inspired by Dogtrax.

Inspired-breathed in re-inspired-and again in

the thump of this line delivers

I love what the OED brings to this poem.

shrill, v.

(ʃrɪl)

Also 4 schrille, 4–6 shrille, 5 shrelle, [skrille], 6–7 shril.

[f. shrill a. Cf. G. schrillen.]

1.1 intr. Of a voice, cry: To sound shrilly. Hence of noises, the wind, or the like, or a place echoing with sound.

   13‥ K. Alis. 777 Bulsifal neied so loude, That hit schrillith into the cloude!    1582 Stanyhurst Æneis ii. 35 The inner lodgins dyd shrille with clamorus howting.    1591 Spenser Virg. Gnat 518 Their mightie strokes so shrild, As the great clap of thunder.    1647 H. More Song of Soul ii. App. iii, Its tearing noise so terribly did shrill, That it the heavens did shake.    1782 Mickle Proph. Q. Emma iv, When the female scream ascended, Shrilling o'er the crowded lawn.    1811 Scott Don Roderick ii. xix, First shrill'd an unrepeated female shriek!    1842 Tennyson Morte d'Arthur 201 A wind, that shrills All night in a waste land.    1884 L. Wallace Ben-Hur iv. iv. 166 His voice shrilled with passion.

2.2 To speak, cry, or sing with a shrill voice; to make a shrill noise. a.2.a Of persons or animals.

   [c 1400 Anturs of Arth. xlviii, Þene his lemmane one loft skrilles and skrikes.]    c 1440 Floriz & Bl. (MS. T) 756 Þe mayde, al for drede, Bygan to shrelle [earlier MSS. crie, schrichen] and to grede.    1595 Spenser Epithal. 82 The Ouzell shrills, the Ruddock warbles soft.    1598 Florio, Querulare‥to shril, to‥chirp.    1639 H. Ainsworth Annot. Ps. v. 12 To showt, shrill, or cry aloud for sorrow.    1837 Carlyle Fr. Rev. III. ii. vi. (1872) 81 The Tribune drones,‥the whole Hall shrilling up round it into pretty frequent wrath and provocation.    1896 A. Austin England's Darling i. ii, The misselthrush That shrilled so gleefully.

b.2.b Of an instrument of music, whistle, etc.

   1579 Spenser Sheph. Cal. Nov. 71 Breake we our pypes, that shrild as lowde as Larke.    1590 ― F.Q. ii. iii. 20 A horne, that shrilled cleare Throughout the wood.    1710 Philips Pastorals iv. 56 Thro' all the Wood his Pipe is heard to shrill.    1842 Tennyson Sir Galahad 5 The shattering trumpet shrilleth high.    1879 E. Gosse New Poems 100 The first sharp snow is shrilling through the trees.    1903 Kipling Five Nations 114 The whistle shrills to the picket.

3.3 trans. To utter, give forth (a sound, cry, words) in shrill tones; to exclaim or proclaim with a shrill voice. Also with out.

   1595 Spenser Epithal. 129 Harke, how the Minstrels gin to shrill aloud Their merry Musick.    1606 Shakes. Tr. & Cr. v. iii. 84 Harke‥How poore Andromache shrils her dolour forth.    1613 Heywood Silver Age iii. i, Through all th' Abysse, I haue shril'd thy daughters losse.    1613 ― Brazen Age ii. ii, What better can describe his shape and terror Then all the pittious clamours shrild through Greece?

   1801 Lusignan I. 173 The terror of the feathered tribe, shrilled in the omens of an approaching tempest.    1817 Coleridge Biog. Lit. xxi. (1882) 205 Gnats, beetles, wasps,‥may shrill their tiny pipes‥unchastised and unnoticed.    1837 Carlyle Fr. Rev. I. v. ii, ‘Messieurs’, shrills de Brézé.    1904 M. Hewlett Queen's Quair i. vii, Lethington likened her to Diana on Taygetus shrilling havoc.    1947 A. Ransome Great Northern? i. 16 Roger's voice shrilled out, ‘Sail HO!’    1975 New Yorker 16 June 97/3 It was a lapse on Miss Sills' part to shrill out a high E flat at the end of the first finale, but otherwise she was tender, touching, and sensitive.

4.4 To render shrill. rare—1.

   1772 Foote Nabob Prol. Wks. 1799 II. 285 If age contracts my muscles, shrills my tone.

5.5 To summon with a shrill sound. rare—1.

   1859 Masson Brit. Novelists iii. 204 The pibroch shrills them to the work they do.

wings...wind..her mind

Yes, truly,

sing

let the songs

be sung

let your melody

weave this with me

into harmony

yes, love, sing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w2UOoF87ps

let your voice be heard

even if only notations

on the page,

for out in the world

there are the sounds

of chaos,

and your voice is the balance

of clarity

I long for

for within the stars

there lies

hope, falling

into our atmosphere

some annotation via #gratefulpoems inspired by Tellio

I am partial

marks on

this page

Note the ways

I've lingered under

your eraser marks

I am but shadows

of my stories

Poems where words

may yet sleep.

reach in

indeed

find the things

we no longer

need

gifts

what have you been given today?

is your blood warmth breathing and pulsing?

Is there a solid road under you?

is there a dog adoring you?

is there thick crusted bread?

is there sense being made nearby?

is there a garden feeding you?

is your air, unmediated and pure?

is your water cold and good?

what have you been given?

if that was taken,

what would you still have?

of that,

what would you still need?

I love how the writer bookends the observation: "I wonder what I am, that anyone should note me." with the end of the poem: "Here there are blueberries, there is no need to note me." Problem and solution. Call and response.

blueberry sky quince clouds bread thick with life meadow margins a blanket of "I am" in a meadow of "No need"

What we are given

in this one sweet life

is what we have already earned

by virtue of being alive.

Do not wonder at that.

Do not sow.

Reap.

From Matthew 6:24–33 (King James Version "KJV"): No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

What do they

think about

when their leaves kiss the sun

and fall to this earth

one final time?

Do they imagine

the rebirth

of another year?

I am here

eyes closed

feeling the way time

moves

but unable

to write it

I am reminded of Tom Waits' "Heart of a Saturday Night", a song of gratitude. I want this sung at my funeral.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7UHd7NVegE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk4wn_YPocc

Magix.

Just magix.

Ravens casting their familiar spell.

The margins of heaven responding.

The river clearing, the mind untroubled.

Now and for a little longer.

glad for the delightful ambiguity--the pines, the readers, the poet

love the caesura here. the pause in phrasing aloud and the pause in print as well.

I am grateful to know that matters to the poet. It matters to me.

God=Laughter.

Laughter is spoken.

God speaks Through laughter.

Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make laugh.

I am reminded of how grateful I am that she lived as long as she did before her suicide. I feel the same feelings toward David Foster Wallace and his Kenyon commencement address. Grateful...then sad, but mostly grateful and glad to be alive to read and share their genius.

Every morning we can

My wife and I

on our front porch swing

share

the news that stays news

at the end of our eyes

and ears

and nose

and tongue

and finger tips.

This is not capital

of any kind,

not interest

or dividend earned

or profit plowed back

It is the ante

we pay each other

to play

this infinite game.

We are alive

to

nevermind

and to

whatever

but not to

the inscape of God

and we remember

the joy of

her laughter

She runs her fingers

down the spine

of my hand

drawing a map

of where I might go

as opposed to

where I have been

for what is belief

but the possibility

of change, of hope

of peace

and whether your god

arrives in some other's form

does it really matter?

steam

calls me

to the kitchen

my wife gone

missing

only for a

moment

Joy

fills this space

forgotten thoughts

lost

in-between

these paper walls

are full of

cracks, in which we weave

our way

back

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sau_MIJfZpI

Tellio has us thinking of poetic gratitude, by annotating poems, and inviting others in. You are invited. In.

Music flares

She cares

too much

of that one single note,

shouted off key by

the kid on the saxophone,

while I reveled in

the ambush of the off-kiltering

melody

Where will they go ...

these wandering

spirits

of our conscience ...

and who will hold them

when the edge of the world

appears?

the way

the rains

arrived,

a bluster

of drops

and then ...

gone,

washed into

summer's coming

days

Try to praise

You must

You should

Praise

the mutilated world

https://soundcloud.com/viciousminuteshour/a-vote-for-the-gentle-light-a

nettles and exiles, nettle because of exiles, mutilated lives, one rising from the other

the tang of wild blackberries dancing that tango on my tongue.

I am grateful for memory even though it incomplete, perhaps mutilited.