Gratitude is a leaf that laughs
and falls up toward the sun
and glides and soars like a red-tailed hawk
whose heart won’t be undone
by clouds as inky as the jaws
of a giant carnivore.
It never wants to land on earth,
in oak or sycamore,
but keeps ascending, drifting, wheeling
over the hills and fields
and thinks a cyclone sounds as fine
as a thousand glockenspiels.
It laughs with the glee of a major key,
though the world’s so full of minor,
and goes on hovering and gliding
beyond the last airliner.
Gratitude is not a whiner.
Gratitude will not moan.
While awestruck by the universe,
how can it feel alone?