It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation. Remember that?

Ummm, yeah, it’s been awhile. Life is hard, still, again. I’m trudging. Are you, too?

“I’m trying to look on the bright side,” a friend tells me, “but everything is so heavy.”

Another friend feels constantly tired. It’s not about sleep. It’s the mental and emotional energy required to just keep on.

Joy expands and contracts in direct relation to our sense of gratitude — especially in the heavy days. On this Thankful Thursday, I’m reaching for the light, trying to make the small things shine (without feeling like an annoying "life coach”).

I found a gem at the library today. Just when I think I’ve read every William Stafford poem available, I walk into the library, turn to a shelf and find a poem that speaks to the walk I just made from here to there. My head had been full of longing and my steps slow with a vague rootlessness. I scuffed through wet leaves papering the street, thinking how brilliant this last step to decay. But I also thought, with a clarity only autumn’s letting go can bring, that the end is rarely so pretty. This golden brilliance of trees, this crunch beneath my feet, I know death’s slow ugly ebb and this is not it.

But of course it is, in its way.

And then I found a worn slim book, Braided Apart, and turned randomly to this poem. And then, because the poem felt like an ushering in, I wrote it out. Copied by hand, again and again, until I could feel the words, the pace, the core. Until a poem made me feel more clear, more light, more me.

*The Saint of Thought* by William Stafford, from *Braided Apart* by Kim & William Stafford.

What are you thankful for today? From the puny to profound, what makes your world, your heart, expand?

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The world turns on words, please read & write.