Gratitude
A morning without work is a morning to breathe, to watch the rain clear
and walk inside the passing voices of strangers, a dog's barking, students
with their bouncing knapsacks of books, baseball hats worn backwards, as
I walk headed toward nowhere important, which is, of course, the most
important place of all - the trees dazzling with light, the dog laps a
puddle reflecting the sky, drinking the shimmer, his belly a puddle of
sky, and my feet beginning to glide down the block, children skipping rope
on the sidewalk, hip-hopping to hopscotch calls and double-dutch dance
steps, scrawling their names in wet chalk running colors like a clown's
extravagant tears - the minor miracle of my job, the lives who give me
the joy of living, this gathering and giving of details: a woman's perfume:
lilacs and lemons, the breath of a baby's hair.