Gratitude without Measure

No need to pile up the gifts or the blessings, marking the gains.
No need to sort the losses, the wounds, the sorrows, noting the missing.
No need to reach beyond the moment into memory or projections of what might come.
No need to fight despair, or grasp for happiness.

Here I am.
Letting go when the time comes.
Cradling with love when the time comes.
Sinking into the earth, or rising to meet the sun.

Here I am.
Or perhaps no longer here.

Not stacking the logs of what has come my way.
Not picking through the ashes of what is gone.

Perhaps there is no difference between that which makes me happy
and that which makes me sad... except the way I respond, attaching
to the idea, my body circuits reacting and flooding me with the chemicals of the moment.

A carrot from our dirt comes,
a walnut from a tree far away,
an apple from the yard, dropped,
a raisin dried from grapes of another season,
bread baked in someone else's oven,
herbs saved from the side yard,
squash found grown in a friend's compost,
cranberries from a New Jersey bog,
oranges from a hill in California,
potatoes from the nearby Middleburgh Valley,
and faces around the kitchen table
made of hope and willingness.

Do we measure this, on which yardstick?
The category of gift or loss? The levels of love or tolerance?
The measuring cup of last year's meal?

I am here, and the greatest joy for me
is the gratitude of this moment.
That I am in this exploration,
human and conflicted,
humble and proud,
loved and loving,
breathing
and not knowing
the next moment
until now.