Gee, thanks

If I say I'm most grateful for love,
I think that I'll have to name
Everything
Here, in fumbling words that don't explain it right
If for the sunshine,
I would have to tell you how it floats golden
Makes the snow glittering down blankets
Heats the river I plunge into and
Grin at the fishes from high where it winks on the surface
If I tell you I'm grateful for family
Then what names would I give you?
Father, sister, brother, kind beloved
The man who laughs with me at the checkout line
About how incredible coffee is
The people spread out all around the globe today
Where it's not a national holiday
Just a good one
Can a poem fit 7 billion names?
This is my family after all
Emmanuel, God with us
All of us
Not just the ones I know and keep close in a circle
All of us with something today
To smile and fold hands for
Our favorite foods close at hand
Kitten curled up on the comforter
The flavor of strawberries
The meetings and the partings
You and I, the moments divine that we hugged each other close
And the ones so painful and right
When we knew it was time to unlock the fingers and let go
The surprises
Birthday presents
The songs I belted out in the car for the steering wheel
The shoes and sandals that bore me over hill and plain
The piano melody you named for me
The sparrows, the cardinals that chorused me awake
Oh, for roses, for ducklings, for thunder showers
Rainbows and garden carts, the passing glance of kindness
That was the only way I've ever known you
For bravery, for pizza and pillow fights
For someone to talk to when something just didn't feel whole
Here we are grateful
For every time we remembered to play instead of pursue fame
When an arm went around our shoulder
Or we straightened our spines tenderly
In order to be more truly ourselves
Here's to pumpkin pie!
To glasses not half-full or empty but brimming
With a zillion miracles a day
All in tiny, fleeting droplets
That combined create an ocean
To drink from at every moment
So that we are never thirsty again
But drowning in this love, this abundance, all this caring kindness
That falls from Heaven like all this sun and rain and snow
We are drenched in Thanksgiving at all times
If we would only name it like we do today
There is too much to be thankful for
A desperate urge to give it all a voice
But let today be for chestnut stuffing
And our nearest and dearest brothers and sisters
Let today remind us
That at all times, there is blessing
A thousand times more than there is curse
Every little cell of all there is
Holds affection for mankind
We need only look at any tiny thing
To know that we have so much to say grace for
So much to live grace for
All we can come up with is to feast today
To somehow manage to take in
All these beautiful things