On the theme of gratitude. For What’s going on.
For what we have lost
Leaves are turning, falling,
and in the woods across the meadow,
the crack of bullets.
The sky too blue, and heat soars
though the sun is autumn-waning,
searing the crackling terracotta .
Trees sigh, roots delving
for shrunken sources,
birds too tired to sing.
I have no heart
for the futility of pumpkins,
and praise-the-lord
for what we are about to receive,
too full of the lives diminishing,
the tramp of boots
and the scream of falling
bombs, birds, leaves.
Each day a little further
from paradise.
The Four Swans 
Loved this Jane.
LikeLike
Thanks Di. I just can’t do this being thankful stuff. To who and for what? Any comforts I have fill me with a sense of guilt because they are all causes of misery for someone else. And that phony ghoulish pumpkin crap gives me the pip.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can see your point. Hubby and I have always struggled, and now when we can relax a little………. the government move the goalposts yet again and target pensioners, which we now are.
LikeLike
Same here. It seems to me that the more ‘things’ you have and the more ‘comfortable’ your lifestyle, the easier it is to look down of the billions less well-off and think, I’m so glad I’m not like them. But the same people will tell you that you don’t need ‘things’ ‘comfort’ to be happy, best things are free etc etc and everyone, even the starving homeless woman with the sick baby can be grateful that at least she’s not in Gaza. I don’t buy that pseudo-religious self-justificatory stuff, I’m afraid.
LikeLike
When we bought the boat, we discovered what was important, and it didn’t come with a cheque book.
LikeLike
Some people think everything is for sale. It’s not. I do think it helps though to have enough to pay for basic heating in the winter, and not to think twice when it comes to basic food purchases.
LikeLike
That’s all we want, just to have enough to be comfortable with maybe a little left over for that little luxury or unexpected bill.
LikeLike
Some have billions and still want more.
LikeLike
It will never be enough for them.
LikeLike
No. Greed is a bottomless pit.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree about gratitude and using it to make yourself feel “better”. Better than what? If the well off were sad and angry that so many are without even basic needs, perhaps we might see some real change. Instead of spending time fighting over scoring political points and looking for “likes” we need to look away from ourselves. It’s not pretty, and we should acknowledge that. We can be grateful for our lives without turning it into some kind of navel-gazing or justification for people to just put up with what they are suffering because it could always be worse. (K)
LikeLike
Yes, it’s easy to get angry with the self-righteous justification of comfort. In the Middle Ages, people like that threw pennies to the beggars on their way to church.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I really resonate with this poem, Jane. With all that is going so desperately wrong, I feel guilty finding gratitude in the small joys and nature’s beauty. For so long, I have hung onto it in place of hope, which is fading fast. But as things get worse and worse and so many remain oblivious, I felt this topic – which I set as a prompt some weeks ago at what’s going on, misplaced in the past week’s events. Your poem is a poem about gratitude still – the other side of it – and expresses what I feel very well. Also, having been below the poverty level for my entire life, I learned to be grateful for what matters most – life, nature’s beauty, an ordinary day, a cup of tea – and it has gotten me through, almost as a mantra. But I absolutely resonate with your poem and you say it so well. It speaks truth, and that’s what we respond to in poetry.
LikeLike
I understand perfectly how you feel about nature, Sherry, and I feel the same. It seems far better ethically to find pleasure and release from anxiety in something as innocent as watching trees grow, than in charging around the globe in search of novelty and something unusual to take a selfie in front of.
I simply find it so hard these days to find anything to be grateful for. No, I’m not dead or particularly ill, but is that enough? Like you, I have always, since I left home, lived below the poverty line. Life is hard, even though other people have it harder. Industrial livestock farming makes me feel sick, man’s inhumanity to every animal species, not just man is depressing, and this place in the countryside, that ought to be so soothing and calm, for almost six months of the year is open season for hunting the wildlife, and we can’t walk around freely for fear of catching a bullet. Nothing changes, even though public opinion is vastly in favour of strict regulation. Votes and cash from lobby groups count for much more.
There is always so much horror in the world, I’m no longer surprised, but I am getting angrier and angrier with the people who find excuses for terror, and spread their holy wars across the globe. While the blue haired brigade safe in their far away cities get their knickers in a twist about being misgendered, in the real world, there are massacres going on. None of that is your fault, and I hope you carry on finding a bit of inner peace while you can xxx
LikeLike
Jane, I so share your angst. For a few years I was so frustrated it kept me seething…..about the climate crisis, government choosing power over planet, about all the injustice and inhumanity which Hamas has taken to another level. Then i think i sort of gave up and Became the Observer of our ruination. This latest has jolted me back into feeling. But i still cant find the words. I am glad we have the outlet of poetry…somewhere to put our pain.
LikeLike
I don’t know what else we can do, to be honest. It makes my blood boil when teachers are murdered because they teach a history that the extremists don’t accept,, and that half the teaching staff refuse to teach certain historical aspects (the Shoah for example) of biology (sex education in general) of civic education, like equality male/female and the separation of religion and state. They get death threats, physical and verbal abuse, so they daren’t tackle parts of the curriculum. It’s an appalling cop out by the government.
LikeLike
I do not think that we were ever close to Paradise. The main problem with the present age is that most people are living under an illusion. The depravities of man were much more obvious to the eye earlier.
LikeLike
No, I agree. There never was a golden age given to us by a benevolent father god. I was alluding to that delusion of so many people who believe that there was, and we’ve lost it through our sinfulness. Maurice Drouon had one of his characters in his historical series about the Capetian kings explain about the unspeakably horrible means of putting to death. Death was so omnipresent then, babies, children dying, foul diseases, death in childbirth, in the fields, in wars, famines etc etc that a public execution had to be really exceptionally gruesome to be memorable. I can understand the logic of that.
LikeLiked by 1 person