Thanksgiving
Hello, friends. Thanksgiving is a time for gentle reflection as well as enjoying the gifts of here and now. As difficult as the pandemic has made such gifts difficult to find, my own reflection has become a healing of ordinary mind (the title of this poem, which I wrote several years ago) — and more time to reflect on a life of spiritual and emotional growth. I hope your celebration of the holiday brings you the happiness of family and friends. Thanks, Gene.
“Healing of Ordinary Mind”
My late eighties are a time to revisit
the power of positive thinking,
since it’s harder to bring about.
Stiff joints and deeper fatigue,
naps to get by, my life force
running down, no easy cure.
Suffering of sentient beings
in Job, Lear and other classics
testify to universal pain at every turn.
Yet our age of plenty wants to reject
every ache of ordinary consciousness
with dangerous drugs and thousands of suicides.
My Italian ancestors found uplift
from lives of work without recourse
to pills and needles, only to homemade vino.
In an age of Pharma for every discomfort,
these elders would have let the cure
of the everyday penetrate awareness,
like my two cats following me to greet the day
on our screened porch enveloped in birdsong,
with the smell of fresh coffee bringing hope.
It’s about opening to such beauty at hand,
giving it time to warm breath and soul,
healing our moments even in decline.
