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In the midst of all the tragedy and hardship COVID-19 has brought us these past weeks, a deep breath and dose of positivity may be just the mental medicine we’re all in need of. Bristol resident Anna Doucet, this week’s featured poet, takes care to reflect on the commonplace aspects of life we have long taken for granted but are now learning to appreciate more and more each day.
A thank you to the world
By Anna Doucet, 16, of Bristol
Thank you
for bringing us mornings that taste like leftovers
and sound like last night’s debate replaying on TV.
Thank you
for giving us the songs of the radio:
politics and pollution, promises and lies.
Thank you
for 8 a.m. voices echoing in the halls of school,
snippets of life we forget to love
until only silence fills their place.
Thank you
for unanswerable questions
and rain outside classroom windows.
Thank you
for building endless cities to get lost in
on a Tuesday afternoon
when the sun dangles from the skyscrapers.
Thank you
for the parade of tired buses
crawling down Main Street at 3 p.m.,
and the space between sidewalks and April skies.
Thank you
for crowds of strangers, but more than that,
thank you
for the people who feel like happiness
and places that look like home.
Thank you
for sunsets engraved with promises
that tomorrow is already on its way,
coming suitcase-in-hand
from another corner of the world.
Thank you
for late-night laughter under the frozen stars,
for conversations to replay in our heads
as we try to fall asleep,
and for the chance to fall in love.
Thank you
for the gentle hug of the twilight,
and for nightlights when our own darkness
threatens to drown us.
Thank you
for 11 p.m. texts: “Goodnight, sleep well. See you tomorrow.”
Thank you
for sleep, and for dreams that we can fly;
thank you
for waking us up to do it all again.
Thank you
for giving us so much to miss
now that it’s gone.
