February 9, 2021

Bless your big heart **

for standing, noiselessly, at the kitchen window, looking for signs from birds. 
Bless your big heart for negotiating the snow like a woman far older than you are, 
because you don’t want to fall down and cause trouble to your own body. Bless your 
big heart for keeping your irritation to yourself when the internet stopped working 
and you were forced to listen to Für Elise over and over before someone came on to take 
your call. Bless your big heart for doing the laundry, for passing a sponge across the table,
for writing the check and checking the oil and oiling the skillet as you lean into the meat 
of this long winter and its grim statistics. Bless your big heart for tilting your face up, 
for dancing, spontaneously, when the mail truck arrives, for the way you keep slicing
apples into eighths, as if waiting for others to come and eat.