thankful thankful thankful
I am so deeply filled with gratitude
and it has nothing to do with a stupid holiday
next week that commemorates a blasphemous lie
with bellies overstuffed with food
harvested by exploited hands,
and crashing helmets re-enacting the theft
of someone else's land,
while others starve and huddle
in bombed-out houses
No, nothing to do with that. Yet everything.
I am so deeply filled with gratitude
gratitude beyond articulateness
gratitude that stretches out
my rotated ribs and sore tendons
gratitude that soars my heart
gratitude barely contained
under my eyelids
barely contained in my throat
that wants to burst forth in
a love song a praise song
a healing song a victory song
a flying, arm-flapping,
glow-stick swinging
dance of singing celebration.
Yes.
Join your arm in mine,
friend, sister, brother,
we will turn our fury
into loving action
we will turn our silenced selves
into hurricane voices
we will turn our mourning
into dancing
we will turn our wounded bodies
into compassionate roadblocks against
hate and violence, against our own
complicity and privilege.
And for, and for, and for,
we will stand and risk and kneel
and sing and pray and cry out
for
life and love and passion
and community and
solidarity and justice and
beauty and tenderness and
peace and healing and
wholeness and integrity and
truth and liberation and
and and and
gratitude
gratitude
gratitude
words
insufficient
to describe
the gift
of your arm
joined to mine
Thanks be to God.
