Lesser Gifts

Lesser Gifts

I.  This Little Light of Mine

Oh come now! It’s so tiny, so unshiny

how can it give light enough

to make a cricket dance?

Puny little thing! It flickers

now and then, but when

it’s held up to the light of day

it fades and squirms away.

Just hold it up, you say

and say and say.

Oh, all right then, here you go,

I sputter, eyes a-roll.

You shake your lion head and smile

and I see stars, so small, fly off your mane

but all together dancing, 

whitening the air. 

Is mine like that? A little star

among the billions trillions sesquatillions?

Yeah, I guess—what if we all said

Not enough of this big bright is mine?

Is that your point? Should I just

stop my whining, just 

let my microscopic flicker shine?

II.  Coins of the Realm

Walk up timidly and put them in

my little coins, the last I have

of this world’s goods. One, two….

So small, so insignificant, 

but all I have to give.

Ah, someone sees! So what?

I’ve nothing left to hide.

My pride? That’s had to go

As all the rest has slipped away

And I’m an emptiness.

But listen—He is speaking

to his followers and all the gathered rich:

This widow put in more than all the rest.

How can he say a thing like that?

My little nothing? But he’s seen it,

knows my life from start to end

and has pronounced my nothing

not just good enough, but best.

Disgusted with my own whining about not being a “real” poet (because that’s what this self-flagellation amounts to), I’m beginning to see the value, in fact the preciousness in the eyes of God, of simply giving what one has. Just keep summoning the courage to share our little gifts. 

November 2018