“Oh, the joy of life when all is good and well.

The bitterness not tasted and instead

only the sweetness of the flower of life.

Expected it is that all of life’s journey will be this way -

overflowing with laughter and love

and all the rightness in one’s world that could ever be.

Yet then, south turns to north and the winds swirl you away,

your direction is lost, and nothing is there to see

of what you once felt of the times of your life.

It is then often when gratefulness ceases in one’s way.

Found is only a disturbed view of this journey of yours.

What then of gratitude?

Might instead one find that within the fullness of life,

it is not just the moments of bliss that count,

but also the ones that come your way

of breaking you down into pieces

that you did not know you had.

Crumbled into dust.

Broken, lying in your own way.

What to make of what is to come?

And then, with new eyes in this time of great light

you take upon you to see that in the breaking down

comes the seed of new birth in your way,

struggling to come to terms with your plight,

growing out of the experience over time.

Yet, one day you see how the new day of dawn,

the joys that come again, were there all along,

growing out of the darkness of those times.

Now, it begins, life-long looking back,

grateful for all that was.”

The LightKeepers/Carolyn Zaiser