thank You for letting me know what this is like

Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel. — Maya Angelou

Author

Lucy Petroucheva
June 10, 2025

A long time ago, I read that

Brenda Ueland

I think this is what I’m doing with Artifacts. I must show you how it looks. ♡

This is my tenth post, and I’m having the time of my life putting these together. I’m grateful to return over and over to the activity I love more than almost anything.

The theme of gratitude1 feels fitting today, so here are five related poems, each with a line (or several) that knock me out. I’ve bolded them. I recommend reading aloud.

And if you want to get in the mood,

1. Gift by Czeslaw Milosz

“Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.”

My goodness.

2. Thanks by W.S. Merwin

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank
you in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is

3. One Heart by Franz Wright

It is late afternoon and I have just returned from
the longer version of my walk nobody knows
about. For the first time in nearly a month, and
everything changed. It is the end of March, once
more I have lived. This morning a young woman
described what it’s like shooting coke with a baby
in your arms. The astonishing windy and altering light
and clouds and water were, at certain moment,
You.

There is only one heart in my body, have mercy
on me.

The brown leaves buried all winter creatureless feet
running over dead grass beginning to green, the first scent-
less violet here and there, returned, the first star noticed all
at once as one stands staring into the black water.

Thank You for letting me live for a little as one of the
sane; thank You for letting me know what this is
like. Thank You for letting me look at your frightening
blue sky without fear, and your terrible world without
terror, and your loveless psychotic and hopelessly
lost
with this love.

4. Relax by Ellen Bass

Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car and throw
your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.
Your husband will sleep
with a girl your daughter’s age, her breasts spilling
out of her blouse. Or your wife

will remember she’s a lesbian
and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat—
the one you never really liked—will contract a disease
that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth
every four hours. Your parents will die.
No matter how many vitamins you take,
how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,
your hair and your memory. If your daughter
doesn’t plug her heart
into every live socket she passes,
you’ll come home to find your son has emptied

the refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,
and called the used appliance store for a pick up—drug money.
There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.
When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine
and climbs half way down. But there’s also a tiger below.
And two mice—one white, one black—scurry out
and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point
she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.
She looks up, down, at the mice.
Then she eats the strawberry. 
So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse

in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat,
slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel
and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely.
Oh taste how sweet and tart
the red juice is, how the tiny seeds
crunch between your teeth.

5. From E.E. Cummings’s Collection XAIPE2

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?3

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

There have been times when I sat down to journal about what I’m grateful for and nothing came out. If you’re overwhelmed or depressed, it can be hard to access gratitude and the attempt can feel empty (or worse: like a reminder of what you don’t have, or can’t feel, or could lose, or did lose).

But then, other times, gratitude4 is really easy to access — and that’s important to remember, and to try for.

I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?
― Vincent van Gogh

Lucy

1  Originally, I thought this might be my Big Post on Gratitude. But then I started really thinking about it, and realized that a single post on gratitude would be enormous. I’d have to put photos of people. Photos of the planet. Photos of colors. Reflections on the seeming rarity of life. I’d need to put stuff about grass. Trees. Birds. Friends and family. Warm things. Tea. On on on. So, to be clear, this is not my Big Post on Gratitude, because it would be impossibly long, and because in a way they all are.

2  Greek for ‘rejoice’ :)

3  UGGGGHHHH!

4  When I came across this collection of poems on gratitude and saw so many of my favorite poems in it, I realized how central this theme is to me.