My gratitude moves in all directions.
Outward, upward, backward, and forward
it flows across the landscape,
picking up stones and bits of sound
that it stores in a bottle
we tip when the sun goes down.
At night, when you’re sleeping,
it traces the outline of your shadow
and wonders what you’re dreaming
as it listens to you breathing.
It selects a moment from the day
and turns it gently over and over
to register the feel of being satisfied
with something so small and quiet.
Tomorrow, when I wake up
it will take me by the hand
and lead me down another path
and through another day,
and when I least expect it,
it will show me something beautiful
and ask me to remember.
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The gratitude you describe is a type of unity; it connects you with bits of the world which you reflect on later and pay forward. I was drawn by an idea – in the first stanza, you write “it flows across the landscape, /
picking up stones and bits of sound” which is both the same and opposite of “In its fingertips it holds a moment from the day.”
A positive message either way. Thanks for the poem.