curl your toes into the grass

Happy May 1! In keeping with a year of poetry month that has been pretty off-kilter in terms of my posting schedule, I am posting my closing poem for April 30 today. It's been a weird month—and, frankly, a weird year so far—with travel and health stuff and being in a new place. I hope that by this time next year, I'll be a lot more settled in Houston (and also, like, not having daily migraines). But it's still been a good April in many ways, and the poems have certainly helped. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next year. ♥

If you find yourself half naked
and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,
again, the earth's great, sonorous moan that says
you are the air of the now and gone, that says
all you love will turn to dust,
and will meet you there, do not
raise your fist. Do not raise
your small voice against it. And do not
take cover. Instead, curl your toes
into the grass, watch the cloud
ascending from your lips. Walk
through the garden's dormant splendor.
Say only, thank you.
Thank you.

—Ross Gay, "Thank You" from Against Which, 2006.