In Which She Earnestly Addresses the Universe

Dear Universe,

Thank you for spring, which arrives like a miracle every year. Today, thank you especially for the gorgeous crab apple trees blooming all over the place. Including the one that I know is blooming in my old back yard, and which I am missing today.

Thank you for Poetry Month being almost over. Thank you for my contest manuscript being almost done. Thank you for sending me good friends who were willing to read it. Thank you for the printer/copier/fax machine sitting on my dining room counter that just printed out 40 pages in less than five minutes. Thank you, thank you, thank you for that.

Forgive me for not writing a poem a day in April, but what kind of hare-brained idea was that, anyway? Please pass along my thanks to the Muse, however, for the cool stuff she has sent my way this month. Thank you for dark, quiet, pre-dawn moments for writing poems.

Thank you for hot coffee.

Thank you for this beautiful sea-blue afghan I'm nestled under.

Thank you in advance for the thunderstorm you're planning for tomorrow afternoon at five o'clock which surely will cancel baseball practice. Thank you for not minding too much when I drop hints.

Thank you for my children who are healthy and happy and turning brown under the gentle sun. Thank you for streams and sandboxes and basketball hoops and scooters and rocks and beetles and watering cans. And bathtubs.

Please be advised that landscape paper was a bad idea from the start, and nothing like it should ever be repeated.

Thank you for immunosuppressant therapies and anti-inflammatories. And bathtubs.

Thank you for full moons, and stars, and twilight, and sunrise. And thank you for that time I stood outside in the dark in the middle of the summer and saw the milky way all around and knew we were just one speck of dust in that beautiful band of jewels.

While I'm on the subject of natural beauty, thank you for Leelanau County.

Thank you for my friendly neighborhood grocery chain that delivers my groceries to my kitchen every week.

Forgive me for all the times I am crabby, small, impatient and otherwise imperfect. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that even on the worst days I am overflowing with gratitude for everything, everything, everything.