Poem In Your Pocket Day tomorrow. Today: "Thanks".

And my thanks to the wonderful Jackie of Jackie Is Reading for offering this poem not only to us bloggers but to her entire school!  She performed it in honor of National Poetry Month, and blogged about her experience as well as all the other actions she's taken on poetry's behalf this month.

I hope you'll consider stopping by tomorrow to join us with your own contribution for our Poem In Your Pocket Day Challenge.

And, no, you don't have to sign up, nor must you have a blog or website, in order to participate!  Just stop on by, post your poem, and invite your friends to do the same.   Then hop around blissfully gathering word-bouquets from around the world.

MFB,  and looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!

L

Here it is:

Thanks

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

smiling 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

our lost 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

we are saying thank you and waving

dark though it is

                                 - W. S. Merwin

From Migration: New & Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2005). Copyright © 1988 by W. S. Merwin. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

p.s.  Bonus for Pocket Poem Participants:  If you email me (actionreaders@gmail.com) or sign up as a member & then join our group at ActionReaders.com, I'll enter you to win one of the two stellar poetry collections pictured above.