James Crews – Winter Morning

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The Research is conclusive: gratitude practice meaningfully benefits our lives. And not just with greater mental and emotional health, but with even stronger immune system functioning as well. In Winter Morning, James Crews is honest though: sometimes gratitude is an elusive feeling. In fact, an opposite state may arise in its place.  Crews’ poem reminds us then that the art of gratitude is the art of paying attention, and that when we incline our minds toward gratitude, whether through the Japanese approach of Naikan or mindfulness practice, gratitude blossoms. As the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh noted, “If you truly get in touch with a piece of carrot, you get in touch with the soil, the rain, the sunshine… If we chew every morsel of our food in that way we become grateful, and when you are grateful, you are happy.”

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Winter Morning

When I can no longer say thank you
for this new day and the waking into it,
for the cold scrape of the kitchen chair
and the ticking of the space heater glowing
orange as it warms the floor near my feet,
I know it’s because I’ve been fooled again
by the selfish, unruly man who lives in me
and believes he deserves only safety
and comfort. But if I pause as I do now,
and watch the streetlights outside flashing
off one by one like old men blinking their
cloudy eyes, if I listen to my tired neighbors
slamming car doors hard against the morning
and see the steaming coffee in their mugs
kissing chapped lips as they sip and
exhale each of their worries white into
the icy air around their faces—then I can
remember this one life is a gift each of us
was handed and told to open: Untie the bow
and tear off the paper, look inside
and be grateful for whatever you find
even if it is only the scent of a tangerine
that lingers on the fingers long after
you’ve finished peeling it.

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