Thank you

Thank You
Ross Gay

If you find yourself half naked

and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing
again, the earth’s great, sonorous moan that says
you are the air of the now and gone, that says
all you love will turn to dust,
and will meet you there, do not
raise your fist.  Do not raise
your small voice against it.  And do not
take cover.  Instead, curl your toes
into the grass, watch the cloud
ascending from your lips.  Walk
through the garden’s dormant splendor.
Say only, thank you.
Thank you.

 

Used with permission by the author.

From:  Black Nature:  Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, Edited by Camille t. Dungy, ©2009 by the University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA