Following Treatment, I Wonder

This might be the best
I’ll ever feel, these aches,
these pains, this deep fatigue—
maybe as good as it’s going to get

I am reading Thich Nhat Hanh on the art of living
practicing I have arrived on the in-breath
I am home on the exhale
trying to turn each day into prayer

This morning I’m grateful for
the neighbor’s crowing rooster,
the best light which arrives at dawn
when hills seem most themselves

For this bowl of crunchy granola
and my friend who made it
presented in a crisp paper bag
tied with red & white ribbon

For the Word for the Day–bibelot—
& its goofy synonyms: bauble, curio,
curiosity, doodad, gewgaw, knickknack,
novelty, tchotchke, trinket

for old colorful things surrounding me.
Fiestaware, kitschy salt & pepper
shakers in the antique bookcase
(glassed in how do they gather dust?)

Friends, too. Ones who get my jokes
and know how to show up.
For Chagall’s floating couple—they hold pastel hands
and for my hands, though sore and bent

from chemo and meds, fingers
number than my heart, fumbling
to hook my bra, button my shirt.
Handwriting shifted to scrawl

For the woman still asleep in the bedroom,
and our love, which took hold on its own
three decades ago and stays strong.
For being here still. Still being, here

For the sun, which will set tonight
without my asking and rise again tomorrow
and I might, too, saying over and over:
thank you thank you thank you

Posted by kind permission of the poet. Photo by Jane Gutting.