thanksgiving.

I am thankful that I woke up, day after day,
and chose to live.
For this black bear who paws at me before sinking her weight into my side and stretching her almost as long as me body next to mine, breathing into her safe and happy sighs.
For this tarantulacaterpillar little owl of a cat, perching on my side and sliding her soft as the wings of a stingray paws to touch my lips.
For this joy that overblooms in the universe of my heart that has no fences; for this love.

For this bigger than me bear that finds me in the dark woods and leads me home. How he curls me into his belly and sings me songs to remember who I am. For he who loves me back to love and waits for me to tear the brambles from my skin and let him see. For him, with whom I learn the fullness, pain and joy of that word: love. How it stretches and tears and insists on the courage of dancing with the shadow things that smell like fear and sing like emergency sirens.
For this grand opportunity to reclaim the wilderness and still be invited to live amongst the wolves.

This, my whole heart.

I am thankful for the late night talks with monsters and the moments when we burst into shared laughter. For the small steps towards each other. The wide reaches into holiness.

It wasn't always so.
And, I wonder if it will always be so.

I wonder how some survive and some do not. If it is a great plan written in the notebook of a curious artist or a random scatter of stars and migration patterns.
What kept me from the reckless step that might've toppled me into infinite nothingness? What kept an ember lit through winter after winter after winter?
Why did I live through it without any guarantee or promise that there was a light that would penetrate the darkening?

For fire to persist in such fierce wind, such dampening despair, is either miracle or chance.
I feel I am the questioning that lives to search for more of an answer than a finale that ends with a bang.

but, then again, there go I but for the grace of....god, goddess, divine, protectors, angels, allies, purpose, path, luck?, soul, stars, mystery.........

so it is
a simple and sincere expression of gratitude, every breath, every moment
that I live to savor one more sip
cry one more tear,
step closer to the holy,
embrace and brace and embrace and brace and embrace
this
precious
life
of
mine.