Poetry: Small Blessings

November 17, 2019 – Los Angeles: The latest Artists For A Better World International “Poetry of the Month” selection features work from Dean Blehert of Virginia.

You are welcome to submit your own poetry, which will be simultaneously considered for both of the ongoing Artists For A Better World International poetry projects:

“Small Blessings”

By Dean Blehert

Blessed are the bees, who swaddle their babes in wax and cram them with sweetness.

Blessed are the ants, who, in their orderly swarms, ease themselves over and under each other without malice, each willing to be a way for others.

Blessed is the spider, who, flightless, yet unwieldy on land, weaves an element of its own, nor earth nor air, where it, alone, can dance.

Blessed is the caterpillar, who endures for months a slow, blind, many-footed trek from leaf to leaf all day to nourish a few brief days of glorious eyed flight.

Blessed are the flowers, whose beauty serves no purpose of their own, for bees are colorblind.

Blessed is the wasp, who lets me capture him in a cup and help him outside, then zips away with renewed energy and does not sting me.

Blessed is the worm, who mates with another worm even though he/she is sufficient unto him/herself.

Blessed is my old dog who, unable to stand, yet licks my face, even though I, who know everything, refuse to tell him why this is happening to him.

Blessed is the cat, who forgives me when I toss her soft unmoving gifts into the woods.

Blessed is the rabbit, so still on the path ahead to remind me that I am dangerous.

Blessed are the starlings who fill up the trees just when they begin to have vacancies.

Blessed is the cardinal who tears opens the dullest day by tugging on a bright red thread.

Blessed are the stones I tread, for they hold the universe together with their faith in gravity, while I indulge in levity.

Blessed are the bureaucrats, for they are prepared to take over if ever the stones should grow weary.

Blessed are the judges, for even though judges shall be judged, they’ve taken the job.

Blessed are the people in charge, for they lie to us, lest, realizing that they are no wiser than we are, we lose heart and are unable to discuss the weather and the World Series between cataclysms.

Blessed is the weather, for it enables polite discourse among strangers—which can lead anywhere.

Blessed are the falling leaves, for they steep in the wind and flavor it.

Blessed are the dandelions, like poems, volunteers – lovely, nutritious, mostly unwanted, but always there.

Blessed are the torturers, who punish us because once they tried to free us from pain and failed.

Blessed are the tortured, who endure much so that even torturers can be good at something.

Blessed are the cockroaches, for if life is sacred, there is nothing that is not sacred.

Blessed are the walls—they turn space into places.

Blessed are the windows, for they allow excess buildup of PLACE to leak off into space.

Blessed are doors, where walls can change their minds.

Blessed are ceilings, for when we lie on our backs with our eyes open, they become the walls within which we feel safe enough to dream ourselves anywhere.

Blessed are the children, for though they are much smaller and frailer than I, they trust me to roam freely.

Blessed are fathers, who must love deeply to believe this hocus pocus about how babies are made.

Blessed are mothers, for our visits to earth greatly inconvenience them, yet they greet us with a smile.

Blessed are machines, for they can be turned off.

Blessed are the signs on the road, for they tell me that someone knows I am here.

Blessed are the cars, for if we ever have somewhere important to go, we can use them to get there, assuming one can go anywhere important in a car.

Blessed are the airplanes, for much faster than my body can run, they can move it to where my thoughts are impatiently waiting for it.

Blessed are the toxic fuels, for they did their best to hide from us far beneath the earth’s surface.

Blessed are the music makers, for they create holes in time to be filled up with the words of poets.

Blessed are the poets, for they exhaust old things to be so that we are forced to be something new.

Blessed are the lovers, for they so thoroughly saturate each other with admiration that the rest of us are free to look elsewhere.

Blessed are the microphones, for I am but one small voice among many.

Blessed are the hands, for where I am too far away for the hands that would reach out and touch me, they touch each other loudly.

Blessed are the trees, for rather than step on us, they dance in the wind standing still.

Blessed are the cups, for my fingers leak and are scalded by coffee.

Blessed are the clothes we wear, for if we didn’t exist, they would invent us.

Blessed are the brassieres, for a man’s hands can only do so much.

Blessed are the newspapers, for they do the work of millions of terrorists, allowing the terrorists to find less arduous employment.

Blessed are the critics, for if they could, they would spare many trees.

Blessed are the bricks, for if we can conceive of a tiny piece of wall, we can conceive of no wall at all.

Blessed is the frame, for inside it the painting can go on forever.

Blessed are the field mice, for they have made our kitchen a place of high adventure, and their droppings are but tiny things.

Blessed again is the cat, who is old now and suffers the mice (or can’t hear them).

Blessed are the guitars, for they speak finger fluently.

Blessed are the roadkill, for they were once alive; and blessed are the maggots, who add their blessings to mine.

Blessed is the beggar, who wakes us from our unseeing by giving the street corner a shadowed intricacy that MUST be looked at or looked away from.

Blessed is the Lord God Almighty, for we must have been taught to say this for SOME reason.

Blessed are the sneezers—they MUST be by now!

Blessed is the cat—again, in hopes that she’ll stop whining at me and let me write, for I can’t both write and scratch her blessed head just right.

Blessed is my head, for when I am inside it my thoughts resonate, just as do my songs in the shower.

Blessed are the readers, for they make this voice in my head a voice in many heads, freeing me to find new voices.