(randy)

I'm thankful to see the woman this afternoon spun by her dogs, their two leashes entangled, and then the woman herself entangled in them, almost but not falling to the sidewalk. 

I'm thankful for my father's presence in my life (not that one but maybe him too) and, riding down in the elevator this afternoon, mail run, thankful to rub between my thumb and forefinger the smooth medallion that once dangled from the box of his ashes and now clinks on my key chain, the medallion that bears the name of the crematorium and four digits, 2773, digits that I study, still, for significance, add them up, count the spaces between 2 and 7 and between 7 and 3, as if by solving an invented equation I might solve something else.

I'm thankful that Joyce bangs around in the kitchen, dinner will be made for me, thankful I can sip Sancerre and imagine the Loire Valley, its trees and rocky slopes and sudden castles. 

I'm thankful that dark clouds gather in Atlanta, that I am given to witness before the dusk surrounds and assimilates it this crowd of grayish blue, not-yet-grumbling, thick vapor sky-beings later to release like a pregnant woman all they bear. Thankful that the streets flood and people run for their cars as if such a thing has never happened, as if water breaking from the heavens is not to be immersed in, as if each of us was not immersed in a wet heaven we can scarcely imagine now.

I'm thankful for corners where I can manufacture what delights me in the making of, any untroubled span of time will do. Even if they are only words.

I'm thankful for our animals: Chihuahua yap dog, increasingly senile cat, squirrel fallen from his nest, hurt, five years go (can it be). For all the animals that have come and gone and will come.

I'm thankful for life's roar, for everything around me in the place I seldom leave. Stacks of books, the walls that contain us, shadowy presences. Cold water glugged in the night after waking from a dream of some vast foreign plateau.

I'm thankful for everything that took the place of what I missed out on. For the furies that drove me stupidly when younger and the regrets that rake me in age. I'm thankful for what I got to feel and know before I had to go.   

- randy (8/15/17).