In Alanis Morissette’s song “Thank U,” the chorus gives thanks for unusual things: India, terror, disillusionment, frailty, nothingness, consequence, clarity, and silence. Being grateful for times and emotions that are not traditionally viewed as “good” is a type of gratitude that comes with experience. In his poem “Joy, William Blake begins, “Joy and woe are woven fine,” and the understanding that one is enhanced or amplified by knowing the other can be easily sidelined when in the throes of any given situation. Since this is a time of year that many people associate with being thankful, what better time to examine some favorite poems about gratitude that address this strange equilibrium?
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
I love this Merwin poem for its expansiveness. Despite every negative or routine thing happening in the text, despite nobody listening, despite the darkness, we are saying thank you. The use of the “we” is important; Merwin draws readers into the mindset of gratitude by including them in the action. The realization here is that gratitude should not be dependent on receipt or abundance, that gratitude should be woven fine into every moment, even the woe.
Another favorite is E.E. Cummings’s “i thank you god for this amazing”:
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?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
In this poem, the speaker thanks God for the beauty and color in nature, a beauty which is infinite and affirming. This gives the speaker a sort of rebirth, and as the speaker is reborn, so is the world, the “gay great happening” of earth limitless and inexplicable. In light of that, the poem wonders, how could any living human doubt the existence of something beyond themselves? And the last couplet is, to me, an admonition—though we hear, we don’t always listen, and though we see, we don’t always look. A call to closer observation, to attention. A reminder.
And if we return to Blake, he ends his poem “Joy” with
“We were made for joy and woe,
And when this we rightly know,
Through the world we safely go.”
This knowledge of both as protection spell. As long as we recognize the power of the dichotomy, we can be grateful, for we know that one tempers the other to make a life. Dark though it is, as Merwin says, we can continue to say thank you.
Some Prompts:
Considering Alanis Morrisette’s chorus, make a list of things to thank that includes: a specific place, a thing you fear, a frailty or fault, a consequence you have faced, something empty, something quiet, and something that you absolutely believe. See if you can explain why you are thankful for these things.
Merwin lists several routine or mundane actions in his poem: eating, standing by a window, talking on the phone, being at work, on a elevator, walking over a bridge. Make a list of five to six routine actions that you perform daily. Think about what joy and woe these tasks hold, and try to weave those into a poem of gratitude for the mundane.
Cummings’s poem describes gratitude as the birthday of the sun, of life, of love, of wings. Choose one of those things, and write about what its birthday party would be like—who would attend, what food/drink would there be, what music, what gifts?