Arlene Corwin writes

Thanks 

Thanks for the consciousness

Of vitamins

And maintenance

Of health;

Things keeping me alive

At eighty-five.

We will not mention the mistakes

Made out of ignorance

And vanities.

But anyways,

Thanks for the consciousness,

However small,

Of learning concepts:

Words that smell of wrongdoings and weaknesses

That lead to nothing gained

                                          and pain.

Thanks for brain, mind, love,

The mysteries shaped from above

Revealing selves from day to day:

Gifts, middling or developed, held up;

Musicality, culinary, long-time waiting;

Gifts from genes and fate

For which one can’t claim credit.

But with gifts come debit:

Karmic debts that must be paid from insight, 

Dis- illusion, self-deceptive strengths and loss

To will and energy to toss them out,

Swapping every wrong for right.

Thanks for seeing through the scrap, the traps

To late night insights.

Thanks for indispensables at fingertips:

Food, clothes, warmth, wit, which list

Goes on an endless on and on.

The value of philosophy - of having one;

Of having fun, but seeing through it.

Thanks for/to the comfy bed I’m lying on,

The pillowed back support for writing from,

The little knowledge in this bank, this little think tank;

For this writing - Thanks! 

And Thanks!

 

[When I read this to my husband, no, discussed the thank theory, he mentioned a whole list of things I would never think of…sun, nature, family, friends, sky (not in that order) and I realised more than ever, it’s all about priorities and whatever takes first place in your mind and heart. I suppose as long as you feel a thanks at all, that is the essential, for so much of life is suffering.]