The Gift of Poetry: "Daily" by a poet and a neighbor

The wife of a neighbor couple who are going through treatment for his leukemia, now facing a bone marrow transplant, writes:

Going through this makes us treasure deeply the incredible gifts that “normal” life holds… how beautiful it is just to have a meal together or be able to tend and harvest a garden, to attend a gathering and visit with friends, to cook food you love and do dishes in your own home, to be able to tend and care for your house and basic needs of your life, to sleep in your own bed, to go to and come home from work. Now “normal” life in its usual rhythm as we look back on it, life before this time of illness, seems idyllic, innocent, and so dear.

Daily
Naomi Shihab Nye

These shriveled seeds we plant,
corn kernel, dried bean,
poke into loosened soil,
cover over with measured fingertips

These T-shirts we fold into
perfect white squares

These tortillas we slice and fry to crisp strips
This rich egg
scrambled in a gray clay bowl

This bed whose covers I straighten
smoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanket and nothing hangs out

This envelope I address
so the name balances like a cloud
in the center of sky

This page I type and retype

This table I dust till the scarred wood shines
This bundle of clothes
I wash and hang and wash again like flags we share,
a country so close
no one needs to name it

The days are nouns:  touch them
The hands are churches that worship the world.

Thanks to JoEllen Moldoff