I did not mention Ross Gay’s poem “Thank You” on July 4, but the entire time I was composing the message, his poem was open on a Poetry Foundation tab on my internet browser. By the time I was done with the message—by the time I’d tidied and edited and polished the final draft—I felt like the poem was there even though I hadn’t explicitly referenced it. Here it is, in its entirety:
If you find yourself half naked
and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,
again, the earth’s great, sonorous moan that says
you are the air of the now and gone, that says
all you love will turn to dust,
and will meet you there, do not
raise your fist. Do not raise
your small voice against it. And do not
take cover. Instead, curl your toes
into the grass, watch the cloud
ascending from your lips. Walk
through the garden’s dormant splendor.
Say only, thank you.
Thank you.
I think I will always be grateful to Gay for this poem, which gazes without flinching at human futility but refuses to give in to hopelessness. The writer of Ecclesiastes, of course, is also focused on futility: “As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath … all come from dust, and to dust all return.” That writer, however, never finds his way out of futility and concludes that everything is “Meaningless!”
As I explained on July 4, the poet Wislawa Szymborska challenges the writer of Ecclesiastes by pointing to his unique life and the unique lives of those around him. Gay takes the response further. Not only can we respond to despondency with wonder at even the simplest things (“curl your toes / into the grass, watch the cloud / ascending from your lips”), but we can use awe as a gateway to gratitude—not as a spiritual chore, but as a practice that, like deep breathing, calms what can’t be resolved, steadies what can’t be fixed, and draws us with equal parts joy and humility into this, yes even this, hour of our lives.
— Mindy Misener teaches creative writing at Montana State University
and serves as Pilgrim's 2021 stewardship chair