Gratitude

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Today I am grateful for a slow day at work. I needed the rest. I feel a bit better, but my stomach still feels like it was run through a meat grinder. Yeah, that good.

I am most grateful that Kira is back in town after almost a week in Cleveland. I missed her.

As a little reminder to appreciate the simple pleasures of life, here is a poem by Jane Kenyon, who died several years ago of cancer.

Otherwise

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.

At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

from Otherwise, 1996
Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minn.


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