Giving Thanks

Thank you for the sorrows,

so I might see myself more clearly,

a small figure in the hardscrabble,

one of any number of cogs,

another version of the many others.

Thank you for the million sadnesses.

They come like cold rain

on an uninhabitable planet.

They fall like angels cast out of paradise.

Like heads into a basket.

More despairs? You shouldn’t have.

I’ll keep them in the cellar

where no light can touch them,

where they’ll take root in the earth,

black flowers in blacker dirt,

unshadows of a faith minus redemption.

You’ve made grief a present.

Like the drowning man

being handed a stone,

I can’t thank you enough.

              I can’t thank you.

            Bruce Mcrae