Saying ‘thank you’ in the dark

With the night falling we are saying thank you
on the plaza, bowing to pigeons, or proclaiming the sky, we say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing in the shadows looking out
in our direction

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
we are saying thank you
and to those who did not survive, whether we knew them or not
we are saying thank you

chatting over cell phones or second-story terraces
we are saying thank you

in doorways crowded with strangers and riding threadbare buses
we are saying thank you

remembering riots and police dressed as death angels
we are saying thank you

in the banks, we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the uncaring … and of all who will never change
we are saying
thank you thank you

with wild animals dying around us and wetlands drained to sand —
we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes of our lives
we are saying thank you

with our words going out like cells of a virus
we are saying thank you
faster and faster

(Photo by Thomas Ives)

when there is nobody is listening,
we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you — and waving
dark though it may be