The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Heaven Underfoot by Diana Woodcock

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I GIVE THANKS ALL DAY

                            after William Stanley Braithwaite 

I give thanks all day for the purring of cats,
For spring and fall and losses,
For migrating birds and the mystery of bats,
For the softness of feathers and mosses.

I rejoice in my curiosity’s wandering bent
That steers me beyond the mundane,
Where imagination takes off like a bird aloft
To soar above the clouds and rain.

I give thanks all day for the mud and muck,
For the pure lusciousness of mangroves,
For little mud clams that crawl across toes,
And pink stilted clouds of flamingos.

I give thanks when words flow, cartwheel and spill,
When I sing myself utterly away
Like Basho’s cicada shell empty and still
End of the last summer day.

I rejoice in discovery
And the great unknowing,
For all that is coming
And all that is going,

For the example of the albatross
With his wingbeatless gliding
Reminding me to cease
From my endless striving.

I give thanks all day
For the rapture and despair,
For all that is missing
And all that’s still there.

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