Tag: Poor

Enough

Posted on by Kathryn Atkins

 

photography of body of water
Photo by Willian Was on Pexels.com

I Wish You Enough

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear.


I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.


I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.

I wish you enough pain so even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.


I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.


I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.

*

I think we need to talk about “enough” today. I feel like our society does not ever have enough. We don’t have enough money. Time. Love. Youth. “Soul.” Well, that’s simply not true, is it? We have all we need. We can choose to have enough of all of those. We may not know it when our bills don’t get paid. Or we are out of time to do the things we want. We may feel unloved today. Or we may feel old. We may not have “soul” as we approach the written page or the musical paper or the dance floor. “I got nuthin’.”  Or “I don’t have enough of what it takes,” we say to ourselves.

That may be true today. But tomorrow, we may have that glimmer. That spark. That patience. Or we may have a way to save or make money. Find time to do what we want. Or we stop to feel a little extra sliver of appreciation for the few things we have. Even an old beat up pair of shoes is actually pretty sweet if we stop to be grateful, and not compare ourselves to someone down the block or around the corner. We may choose to be glad to have any shoes at all. Or feet.

That’s it. We can do so much if we stop, take stock, and appreciate who we are and how lucky we are. Our attitude determines our life view. And of course, everything is relative. We didn’t know we had enough until we wake up one morning and we’re out of whatever “that” was. Food. Money. Time. Because if you don’t wake up, for instance, you are definitely out of time.  But for today . . .

               . . . you have enough. 

 

The poem above is published in my collection, Giving My Self to the Wind. 

So Now We Know

Posted on by Kathryn Atkins

We thought we would like knowing. In fact everyone that knew liked knowing at first. But now it’s a little weird. It’s strange knowing when your sister is going to die.  It’s simply surreal when people boarding planes are asked if they know.

It is difficult to cope now that you know when your spouse will die. Yes you knew they would. But now you when. It’s horrifically different.

People that know wish they didn’t. People that know find ways to pretend they don’t after all. Everyone is on edge.

Some people plan for it. They stage big going away parties, like they are moving, or retiring. Some people blaze down their bucket lists with heavy black check marks next to the cities and countries they have always wanted to see, the activities they’ve wanted to experience, the lives they’ve wanted to live.

Other people watch TV shows to engage with their lists. But they feel better about it, somehow, now that they’ve taken time to turn on the shows. Before they just talked about it.

Tasting and feeling and loving and living become more important for some. In fact, the wealthy people spend their time spending their wealth. At the same time, the poor people don’t do much differently, because they do not know when they will die. They cannot afford it. Or perhaps they don’t even know they can know.

The greedy people swoop. Like they do. And they make a mess of things. That hasn’t changed.

But now that we know, we change. Because it’s different now. Very different.