PRAISE

I haven’t felt this way before, exactly. It’s not right, like my pursuit in that praiseworthy declaration got knocked aside. Why and what now? Do you feel the same? I want to praise the day when it sneaks in under the blind, just as Canada geese fly honking over the house, at me, saying it’s morning, old man, get up, get up, the day calls. I need to praise the woman stirring beside me, and the day I first saw her, putting her feet on the floor, finding her slippers, rubbing our dog’s head while she thumps her tail against the bedrail. Add the hot water blasting over my body, weathered like an old boat left on the beach, its paint peeling under the sun, blistered and cracked, but it’s my damn body and the water feels good, prickly and strong. Happy there’s a day waiting, I want to jump into it, impatient with the teeth, the scrub, the towel, hang it up, the socks, two feet, and on and on, then tie my shoe laces so I can stand clothed, ready to get on with the feel and sway of my new day.

I want to praise it, this thing, this day, this pool of time to see and do, with someone I love and who loves me. I want to give praise, it’s such a gift, able to think, to look out the window breathing in how everything stretches away in every direction full of goings on bursting every which way: cars on the road, horses standing in their corral and on the highway trucks big and small rush to deliver a service, to sell, to haul away your aunt’s piano, or you decide. Imagine the restless, eager energy at purpose just there vibrating. I want to praise how it assures me that everything’s working; the wheels are turning, lunch pails packed, and people hurry to work, then home, pick up a child, or meet a friend, or fall into an embrace. How can you not praise this human voltage and care for each other, because we depend on a truth: I care for you, you care for me, and that’s how it should be. I want to praise the talk when people stop to eat, their laughing, storytelling, secrets, and gossip. Yeah, praise gossip. I want to roll its flavors on my tongue. What a yawn without the spice of “Did you hear?” tease your ear, to leaven the day’s tick-tock on every block and lane?

How intricate it all is, the courts, the charged and the victims, the public defenders, the prosecutors, the juries, plus huge buildings filled with nurses, patients, doctors, suffering, healing, skilled hands pushing death away, not here, not now, catch you later. Schools, the best, you want to praise them, that place that will parse a feast that waits for those who want to eat. A kid carries his little backpack in the school door; time splurges and out they pop with a swagger, laughing to pull the future’s tail, to see what it means, a growl, a bite, or a wild ride from ditch to peak in a blink. I want to praise those who make it work, who love students and being a gardener of change, a catalyst, an example, a Pied Piper for books, and nooks that surprise and upturn over lives. More, I want to praise those in pristine labs and messy offices, dogged and demanding, no bullshit but demanding facts, bare-boned and tested. I want to praise those driven to ask questions, the kind that add grace to our human race and not more lead to our dread. I want to praise the mothers and fathers watching over neighborhoods with silver whistles. I want to praise that care everywhere.

I did. I could praise freely feeling the lift from the mighty all pulling in rough harmony together for compromise, checks and balances, against tyranny wherever, mix it up white people, and striving with kindness and tolerance. Who did this, says, too young to know? Listen, these beliefs defined an us. We felt their embrace. Like a great sea, its power gave hope; its horizon open and inviting. I never thought that feeling might not be there when the geese fly as the morning light slips in to chase the dark. I have to believe that the ocean is there, and a boundless wind is rising.