Crazy with Gratitude

with thanks for Mary OIiver’s poem, Honey Locust

What Oliver said of the bee:
“crazy with gratitude, happy as a saint,”
describes my days at seventy-three.
Announcing happiness
can risk one’s social standing,
which is good, as I wish to sit
out the old fears.
I remember at twenty, despair
seemed the only grownup choice,
and a mother’s anguish took me headlong.
All I could see ahead
was the darkness of nuclear winter.
Today I see humans
waking, evolving, blooming.

Today, like the bee, I understand
I am part of something grand.
The danger’s greatly magnified, yes.
And so’s the hope and heartening.
Gratitude and happiness
take human vision places
fear could never dream of,
and bring the necessary tonic
for social transformation.
Since we are entangled,
despair and fear
are just as communicable.
We choose. We choose.

©Susa Silvermarie 2021