Let Gratitude Pour Over You

Let gratitude pour over you

Like sheets of rain that catch you off guard

Take the moment, stand in it

Allow a smile to cross your lips

Throw your head back, hands wide, chest open

Welcome the surge of gratefulness that flows over your body

Through your body 

Let it wash over you, let it cling to your clothes

It lingers, the wetness a reminder long after the rain clouds have passed

Let gratitude pour over you like a warm shower 

Even on days you crouch in the corner

When the weight and pain of the world overwhelms

Protecting your tender heart with your curved body’s fetal position

Let the gratitude warm that heart, that body

Quivering from the chill of the world, the ice cold fingers of hate

Grant gratitude permission to emerge from your aching heart 

Like long tentacles that move to wrap you in its warm embrace

Squeezing you until it spills tears from eyes, thanksgiving from lips

How do you squeeze gratitude from despair, thanksgiving from pain?

From depleted heart sources and love-barren fields?

You just do.

You squeeze it from the promise of a better tomorrow

From little arms that hug your neck tight, and big ones too

From faces that light up when you enter a room, or a zoom room

From food that fills your belly, and clothes that warm your skin

From rage that burns deep within that belly

…because you have a belly that can still rage

From faces that hold spaces in between…

How do you hold gratitude and despair in the same space?

You just do. You must.

Because gratitude is the light that beacons hope.

Sending you all love and peace

~Bunmi