Gratitude

Even for the empty spaces left behind

Fading Memories endlessly tumbling in

Like digging sand castle moats at the seashore

Each child’s shovel full of sand,

Creating a void

Instantly filled by grains of sand,

Time, life and space

 

 

 

He left in a hurry, after 40 years

He never said goodbye,

No time to construct

Retaining walls around our shared Being

Cancer and the surgeon’s knife

Cut away at the ligaments of life

Chains and reinforcements

 

Six years now, of knowing

The absence of his body pressed against mine,

A web of tangled arms and legs

Sharp edges of granite life,

Now smooth with the tracks of tears

A two part intended, now a solitary path

Washed and buffed by winds of time

 

Remaining now, variegated grains of time washed glass

Gone are the silent mornings

After some forgotten quarrel

Now, only the gratitude for shared coffee

The morning paper a truce between us

The morning sun slanting in

So that we would have to shift or squint

 

Gone are the worries about the children

And the stubborn resistance

Of our parenting styles

Now only a lens of gratitude for a father

Of great depth and common ground

We tread together,

Only the laughter and the joy remian

 

Gone are the nights of worry,

And financial strain

Now only gratitude for the trust we shared

We planned for a future, and weaved a web

Of memories on which I lay my head

Time, money and energy

An illusion of permanence

 

Gone is the tension of yin and yang

The growth of one, matched and met

Challenged by the other

Divergent energy and style

All that remains is the gratitude for each

The aggregate art,

Our own shores of sand

 

Gone is the fear,

What will it be as we get old?

Will you get sick or frail?

Will we loose our memories?

Now, only gratitude for any memories I hold

Which soften and fall together

Sand art striations of moments in time

 

Gone is the tedious worry unneeded

Of what, why and when,

Only The Now remains

A naked gratitude and simplicity

Delight in the sky and the stars, constant and changing

Gratitude for sunlight,

And the shadow of the trees at dusk

 

Gratitude for the echo of voice and of spirit

Resonating, reverberating, reflected in pools

Gratitude for life, for breathe, for my being

Gratitude that I may witness for him

The glory of the eagle’s soar,

The reflection of the sun

 

Gratitude for those who have gone before

Their voices each soft and strong

Pearls in the sand

Washed away by tide’s rhythmic flow

Gratitude that I am now the witness

Of the sunrise

Gratitude for the beating of my heart,

Once echoed in his chest

 

Gratitude for the surgeon’s knife,

It slipping unaware that it would be

The servant that helped this passage to be,

Gratitude that he didn’t wither and suffer

Or let cancer have its way,

Gratitude that I knew him,

And for the co- creation

Of our lives and of our children

 

Gratitude for the mystery

 

Janet E. Hartwick Sterk