Gratitude Month Week Two: The Kingdom of Now. A Collection.

Do not hurry; do not rest. Though even He rested, one day.

Some moments, spent missing you. 

Other moments, spent missing not one single square inch of you.

Dog's life is shorter than mine; let him stop to smell everything. 

The now of waking: what kind of sky, through the threadbare curtain.

The now of waking: the cat, less her collar, comes in through an open window, paws wet with night rain, examining the thin skin of my eyelid with curious nose. She loves me.

My mother's voice is calm when she tells me the news, but even in this calm we are both thinking: nothing else matters, but this. 

Put my face over the coffee grounds as the steaming water seeps through; half the reason why, anyway.

My father gave me the carved wind spiral from the house; after a heavy wind I go to reorder its lines of wood and spend the afternoon with cedar fingers.

  On the bus, a girl with a rope of beautiful hair bound to her head with a glass comb. 

Through the wall, the low vibrations of my neighbors, talking to their baby.

The now of the house plant: You need more time to grow your roots, I say. You, too, says the houseplant.

Three new blossoms of the African Violet, timid before the grey window light.

A body strong enough to cover seven miles and more.

The Moonflower that has survived the fall and winter indoors; that is beginning to thrive, give new growth. With luck and encouragement, it will bloom for one night in late summer, its white blossom a single, unfurling trumpet under a dark September sky. 

Ask only to be worthy. 

With luck and encouragement. 

 Nothing else matters. But this.