A Little Gratitude

A Little Gratitude

To all of the people who give a damn
to those who would offer their last bit of toast
to those who help people who are poverty stained
who understand we are all one big family
and that the unimportant things seduce
who work hard to integrate

the ones who have been disregarded, shamed: to integrate
the ones who have been shunned, oppressed, the damned
the ones who have who have been seduced
the ones who have had their inner self turned to toast
the ones who are bereft of any family
the ones who are adversity stained

Thank you for seeing more than just stained
and hopeless euphemisms, to integrate
the person back not using the label, but the family
name seeing more than just some mistake or some damn
illness, not some piece of discarded toast,
and not some vile fiend looking to seduce

innocence away from the young,  to seduce
values away from the land, to leave a stained
path of destruction in their wake, to toast
the good and to integrate
evil, destroy a family.

People are just people, one big family.
And we need to accept each other. Integrate
the idea that we are more than the potential damned.
We are all different, and each carefully stained
with our own unique beauty
our own positiveness that integrate
into our being, each of us deserving a toast.

We are all miracles, like a croissant left in the heat to toast
warm, flaky, tender, flawed, possible family
nourishment. So, to those who wish to integrate,
to enfold in a warm hug, not to seduce,
I want to thank you. To shake your hands that are stained
with your humanity. To those who run towards the damn

inferno, who toast in the flames to battle the seduction
Thank you for our family, for altering the stain.
Proving humanity's best integrated cry: We give a damn!

heidi with contributions from  Alicia, Anne, Sarah, Kathy, and Kristin
written 4/18/13
posted to dVerse Meeting the Bar: Unfathomable 4/18/13


Towards the end of February, I asked  my friends on Facebook to give me a word and then I would use those words as the end words of a sestina. They gave me the words, but, at that point, I no longer had a sestina in me. Then, at this week's dVerse Open Link Night, there was a link to Victoria Slotto's wonderful Transience-A Sestina. It got my sestina fires burning again, and so, early this morning, I wrote this sestina.

This afternoon, on dVerse Meeting the Bar: Unfathomable, Anna Elizabeth Graham wrote an interesting and insightful post about the poetry that comes from disaster or catastrophe. She prompted us to write a poem that comes from disaster or catastrophe  Even though this poem isn't about a large disaster specifically, I think it fits in with the prompt.

I want to thank Alicia Atchison Lemonier, Elizabeth Anne Sclater, Sarah Helmer, Kathy Hammonds, and Kristin Naccari for giving me the words to use! Y'all are the awesomest!