Toasts and Celebrations

A quiet mind, a strong body, short hours
   In the office; close friends who speak the truth;
     Good food, cooked simply; a memory that’s rich

We had better empty the wine-cups.
To-morrow, at bright dawn, the world’s business will entangle us.

and it is good, a way of letting life
out of the box, uncapping the bottle
to let the effervescence gush
through the narrow, usually constricted neck.

To celebrate the waking, wake.
Burn in the daylong light;

I feel the earth move sunward,
I join the great march onward

                                      Be of good-cheer,

my father says, lifting his glass to greet
a morning in which he's awake to be
with the birds: or up all night in the sleep
of the world, alive again, singing.

Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

            won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.

    celebrate your own
& everyone else’s birth:

Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,

            I close my eyes, hear myself
moan, so grateful to be held this way.

                                                   Let us praise them  
in all of their varieties, some skinny  
as the bands of headphones, some rising  

                to live and work
so hard
God’s love
washes right through you

                                              Season of
joy for the bee. The green will never
again be so green,

yours
was the only shape left
with purpose or direction

toes pointing, a smile steeped
in ceremony, a celebration,

Where we can ponder, celebrate, and reshape
Not only what we are, where we are from,
But what in the risk and moment of our day
We may become.

Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old,
   We'll mount and sing and spread immortal sails.

In each thing, be all. Give all you are
         In the least you ever do.

Eat thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die.