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Recorded Reading (3:18): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6ar2h39byn7ylu7i5l4tf/Gratitude-Journal.mp3?rlkey=5qfkigl8psce8lr1mmbroqdsk&dl=0

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Gratitude Journal

If we’d ever spent the night
Trying to read by candlelight
Moving all our needlework
Back and forth where shadows lurk
Not knowing quite where to put on
Insubstantive appearing button
Deciding, this sock, to mate ‘er
Either earlier or later
When the project’s best begun
In a patch of nice bright sun
It would give us quite a stitch
To have light by flicking a switch!

And crouched as Third World women must
Endlessly trying to adjust
A little less, a little more
Cooking heat, upon the floor
With fuel which we deep respect
Since, every bit, had to collect
Make patty cakes from, and then dry
Before the family dough fry
We’d think it ecstasy behove
Any owner of a stove

When gods our life have seen to bless
With just one sari for a dress
So we wash one end of it
And then wait a little bit
For the breezes to come by
That end of the sari dry
Before, in the other direction,
Repeat the whole thing for perfection
It would we very much amuse
To own a second change of shoes!

Packaging that’s waterproof
Stored up underneath the roof
We know that there will come a time
That plastic will be just sublime
Absolutely perfect tweak
For fixing up a stubborn leak
For which nothing exists to hand
For miles in our impov’rished land
We would such thanksgiving cry
When we managed to stay dry!

If we’d grown each little bean
And grain of rice that we had seen
For years past at any dinner
Every one would seem a winner
Precious as a speck of gold
In appreciative hands hold
Aware of its impending loss
The most piquant kind of sauce ~
Entitled diners taste but lack
Imperiously sending back

When we find selves dissatisfied
We might cast our glance more wide
Than our own circles, close around
In which abundances abound
Of the same kind we’ve always known
To which so very used have grown
Providing a background too shallow
To any true relief allow
Habitual smoth’ring sameness from
So we to gratitude come

The more we see, the more we learn
The more we feel, the more we earn
Rewards which come good feeling from
The more appreciative become
Of miracles, in their own way,
Which bless our each and every day
Some struggle to find one each night
In gratitude journal to write
In this poet’s world they abound
All, all, all, all ~ all around…

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Until removal of the stalker/targeter/vandal/arsonist following her allows her to approach any landlord ~ even for a private parking space ~ and to begin once again to create professional connections and to rebuild her life, this poet presently lives homeless and at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level ~ still working seven days a week to contribute to her society, however.

Arts patrons may visit http://www.UgiftABLE.com , using code #72D-31S, or choose to send a personal check to the poet’s ABLE account. It takes about two weeks for the poet to be notified of your patronage.

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