☀️ The Daily Boost #874

Ah! The world is awash with world!

The Daily Boost (published weekdays) is one of the newsletters of The Raft, the online community of author Phyllis Cole-Dai. We Rafters ride the river of life buoyed by music, poetry, and other arts, along with open spiritual practice. Most everything here is free, but patrons (paid subscribers) get some special perks as a gesture of gratitude.

Have I mentioned that I’m grateful for you? Grateful to you?
Wherever you live in this world, on this Thanksgiving holiday in the US, I SEE YOU.

Read this poem. Listen to this music. And know that you matter. Just as you are. More than you’ll ever know.

ODE TO EVERYTHING
Marjorie Maddox

Enough of the lamentations. 
		Open the window and sing! 
	The world is awash with 
world: color-dripping globe always
tilting into some Ah! or another, 
clouds stretching wide plump happiness,
	even in the noisy stage-show of showers, 
            such sunny ovations.
		And the birds—
overpopulating every poem—
swoop here for free—
swallow, hawk, robin, gull, eagle—what else
can be written but wings that wave
horizon to horizon? 

And enough of windows.
		Praise doors! Step out
	with arms open, and eyes gathering
	vim and vision: grandeur
trailing from worm and woodchuck, 
branch puzzles of woods, open boat of breeze—
all brimming with Hey! 
	and Hallelujah! 
		and Celebrate! such green giving
of thanks, such miraculous mercy of earth:
calm valley and even this rugged, rocky chain
we climb now as family, claiming praise as respite, 
holding close each breaking day, dangerous
		yet divine in all
		its gorgeous glory.


(first published in Plough)

(My thanks to Marjorie Maddox, via The Poetry Salon.)

Thanksgiving Bonus

(My thanks to Rhiannon Giddens, Crys Matthews, and the Resistance Revival Chorus.)

The Gentle Nudge

• ANYTIME: Lay a blessing stone here. (Learn about our blessing-stone practice at this link.)

• THURSDAY: No Poetry Pick-Me-Up due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US

• UPCOMING: “Calming the Heart” patron bash with James Crews (Zoom, December 15, 6PM CT). Details here.

• THRU 1/31/25: Write a cento for a midwinter cento celebration. Details here.