Today's poem by Susan Moorhead

Back in 2016, I posted two poems by Susan Moorhead, a woman I "met" via blogging. She no longer writes her blog but it is still up so you may visit here. I have remained in touch with her via instagram. This poem is from her 2021 book.

                                                                      Common Wonders

In a dark time, when I became lost, the feelings

for everyone I had loved and for everything that once

held meaning left. Light of any kind was missing

down at the bottom amid the skeleton fish and nameless

things. I stayed lost until some lift of grace willed me 

back. When I returned, it was the smallest of things

that held my hand. The play of colors in a quilt, flavor

of a neighbor's offering of soup and bread. Green outside

the windows. The first thrashing thunderstorm, lightning

brash in the sky. The quilt wrapped around me. I felt

the rhythm of the hours, clockwork steady, as I stumbled

back from grief where time does not exist. People want

to find a lesson in everything, but what is the takeaway

of sorrow? I could say it was the resilience of my heart,

the will to rise that carried me, but no. It was the small

wonders revealed, moment after moment. Every bird flying,

each slowly whirling cloud, the scatters of light spilling

through tree branches, the hush in the yard as evening fell.

Noticing these small graces allowed the terrible rift in me

to mend. One evening, reading to my child, I heard tenderness

in my voice replace the rote dutiful tone that grief had

assigned me. I felt the ache of love return, common, wonderful.