Ode to Gratitude

Thanks to the word
that gives thanks.
Thanks to the gratitude
for how excellently
the word melts snow or iron.

The planet seemed full of threats
until soft
as a translucent
feather,
or sweet as a sugary petal,
from lip to lip,
it passed,
thank you,
magnificent, filling the mouth,
or whispered,
hardly voiced,
and the soul became human again,
not a window,
soome clear shine
penetrated the forest:
it was possible again to sing beneath the leaves.
Gratitude, you are medicine
opposing
scorn’s bitter oxides,
light melting the cruel altar.

Perhaps
you are also
the carpet
uniting
the most distant men,
passengers spread out
through nature
and the jungle
of unknown men,

merci,
as the delirous train
penetrates a new country,
eradicating frontiers,
spasibo,
joined with the sharp-cusped
volcanoes, frost and fire,
thanks, yes, gracias, and the Earth
turns into a table,
a single word swept it clean,
plates and cups glisten,
forks jingle,
and the flatlands seem like tablecloths.

Thanks, gracias,
you travel and return,
you rise
and descend.
It is understood, you don’t
permeate everything,
but where the word of thanksgiving
appears like a tiny petal,
proud fists hide
and a penny’s worth of a smile appears.

— Ode to Gratitude by the great Pablo Neruda

Cupcakes are an ugly, cut-throat business.

As most of you know, last spring I began selling cupcakes out the window of Peter McManus Cafe on 7th Avenue in New York City.  All was going well  -  I had some success, developed a following, got some great reviews - and then all hell broke loose.  I started receiving threatening letters from a law firm representing a cupcake company out West with a similar name.  Then the weather wreaked havoc on my business plan.  (Let me tell you - there is no love lost between humidity and butter cream frosting.)  An elderly person ate a cupcake and died.  (In my defense, she was very old and dying anyway, but the fact remains that my cupcake was the last thing that passed her lips.)   Lacking the financial and emotional resources to fight the law and mother nature, (let alone a murder charge,) I folded like a cheap tent.  A couple of months ago, my business FaceBook page disappeared without so much as a warning.  My photographs and all the wonderful posts of encouragement disappeared along with it.  I just wanted to thank everyone for their support, and let you know that I am well out of the cupcake business.