Grappling With Gratitude

by Laurie Kuntz


A month after her brain surgery,
Greta met us in the Sawtooths,
and we shadowed behind her scrambling 
over boulders bordering the tree line.

When the wind whisked her hair away
from her downy brow, her scar was visible,
and you, her mother, keeping abreast on the trail,
grappled with altitude and gratitude for this daughter,
lean as a mountain vine, determined as sagebrush
growing on this sketchy track of mountain and world.

                                                                           Who to thank…

Doctors, prayer givers, kind strangers in hospital corridors,

or the daughter who believed, finally, in herself?

                                                                           Where is the marrow of gratitude?

Does it bellow like mountain echoes,
scatter like mariposa lilies in high altitudes,
                            
or just settle in the lines of this poem?


* * * * *

Laurie Kuntz is a widely published and an award winning poet. She’s been nominated for a Pushcart and Best of the Net prize. She’s published two poetry collections (The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Finishing Line Press, Somewhere in the Telling, Mellen Press), and two chapbooks (Simple Gestures, Texas Review, Women at the Onsen, Blue Light Press). Her new chapbook, Talking Me off the Roof, is forthcoming from Kelsay Press in 2022. Recently retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind. Visit her at: https://lauriekuntz.myportfolio.com › home-1