Welcome Morning

Just a poem today, from Anne Sexton...

Welcome Morning

There is joy
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry "hello there, Anne"
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
each morning.

All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning
and I mean,
though I often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds at the kitchen window
peck into their marriage of seeds.

So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter in the morning,
lest it go unspoken.

This Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,
dies young.


This poem has become a favorite in the midst of life, and I think of it often in our kitchen. Our kitchen, our home, has become a place to appreciate the gestures and moments of life that are everything to us. I speak in the first plural here, though my love is thirty feet away, for I know that she would agree with me on this. It is in the ordinary that we find and approach the sublime. It is in the moments that could so easily pass without any notice that we find our breath joined, when I look at her and she at me, and one or the other of us simply says, "I love you, too."

Life, it seems, is in these moments. As our dog sleeps on the sofa, I type away at my computer, and N begins the dishwashing duties Cat Stevens is on the radio asking where the children play. Just an hour ago this room was filled with a wonderful group of people sharing life and working through the complexities of being queer. In the midst of our hurt, we feel the unity of community and know that we have a place somewhere with the divine. We have a place at the table, and the food is so so good.