Gratitude Poem 2016: Hot Sauce Poetry

My thanksgiving tradition continues: in which I turn all the words in my gratitude journal from the past year into a poem. This year's poem... 

Gratitude: Hot Sauce Poetry

I remember my father filled with despair, an atheist he said we would cease to exist. He looked into the stars and now he has gone there, twinkling in my imagination, or just gone if we believe his.

I will always remember him in the shoots of Oregon Spring tomatoes, the tender raw scent of tomato leaves, the experimental soil. He taught me to plant so many varieties of vegetables.

Inhale the spices — turmeric, cinnamon, cardamom — on a clear sunny day, New Year's Day, surrounded by views of majestic mountains.

Here you begin your rich intellectual life strolling along the idyllic Snohomish and Sammamish River trails.

Here are the images of your recurring dreamscapes, granting familiarity in unconsciousness at night. 

Sam runs and walks with me around the town: the sights we enjoy together are art and justice. We walk on spring days into even more light and months of poetry.

Now, a deer sighting in the labyrinth. Here, displays of emotion underwater. There, mandalas of discoveries in the skies. Everywhere, mazes of breath.

In Berlin, we ate three course meals mit wein beleitung on top of the collapsed wall colored like a book.

The Turkish cab driver said, "Don't vote for Trump, the world is counting on you." 

But that's tomorrow. Today, I am grateful for travel, culture, history, people, seeing friends abroad, life, opportunity, apples — everything!

Now we are building stamina, building resilience, enjoying movement, luck, love, optimism, summer weddings, warmth, bunnies, musicians, friends —women in space!

On Earth: homemade waffles, routine dentistry, evenings out, ease of transportation — you do not think you are grateful even for the car starting until...

And sometimes, even now, scrappy politicians, good Senators — Cory Booker, Maria Cantwell, Patty Murray (Yes, reelected!).

Nearly every day I am beginning a promising book and finishing one.

I am grateful for vision and even near-sightedness.

O, love, listen to the music, music, music of poetry. New experiences, new discoveries, new, the genesis of an idea, new, a spark of inspiration, new, the shoot of a seedling rising.

Precious, planned for, planted. Worshiped, waited for, watered.

Just like my father taught me — or meant to.