Alien

Alien to my thoughts, is gratitude.

I’m forgetting in the dazzle of gifts

That they are not simply falling

I take it for granted, the voices, hands and some snow sparkling on a Saturday morning.

Not gratitude, but complacency rests on my eyes.

And I’m looking through a foggy lens.

Until.

In the cafe dish pit, as water steams into muffin tins

In this unlikely place I remember

The memory of other times

When gratitude was my hammered, daily task…

…the task which leads to joy.

In the bubbles I was reminded of clear sight, light to the blind man

And when I turn in the center of my life

I see a little girl reading to her brother

Pudding in an ancient china bowl

Looked for emails arriving bold in my inbox

Getting work done to the tune of bribery french fries

Kisses blown across the longing space of a country

A soft blanket

Contented baby

An egg

Hug

The thoughts, like riding a bicycle, are not easily unlearned.

Instead they find room in my heart, a building and warming so that gratitude

Will no longer be a stranger.