I thought it was grief

Sadness

It felt so heavy

Important

I sat with it for awhile

Beneath morning stars

Salt water

Began to trickle

Such was the pressure building

This weight in my chest

Crushing

My heart flipped behind my ribs

a landed fish

trying to make sense of oxygen

From out in the yard

On the Shala deck

I stared back at my house

And thought

It is so beautiful

We designed this home

And built it from the ground up

When we had barely anything

But the harder we worked

The more luck showed up to find us

And further

I thought of our sons

Their children

Beginning now to come

And provide us with little humans

So precious

So special

To love

And the crushing grew enormous

But I saw that it wasn’t something

That sat on me

Instead gravity was reversed

Turned inside out

Sucking me into the vast darkness and sparkles of night

Gratitude

Isn’t light

It isn’t daily affirmations scratched on a page

Token smiles to light the way

Instead it is the sorrow of all that you took for granted before

It is the doctors kind smile

As he closes the door

And sits

To explain a diagnosis

The angels hand

That tugs you back to your purpose

Hauling you out of preoccupied foible ridden

distraction driven

quicksand we descend into

on a daily basis

You look back and wonder

Why didn’t I see it all then

before the end?

That weight right there

That weight of realisation

is so enormous

you can barely stand

So you sink to your knees

But you’re smiling again

Inexplicably

Because there is still time

Hear me?

There is still time.

So

In the worst moments

When others look askance

At your grin

And the weird energy

You emit

You’re all lit up within

“Why are you muttering Thankyou

for this?“

They may think

But they can’t see it

Only you can

Because gratitude

Is understanding

On a cellular level

That the harder life becomes

The more the human breaks

The deeper the revelation

The greater the clarity

And all that spinning

granular rotation

Is simply

The diamond cutter

attending to his polishing

Have a blessed day X