In this season of advertised merriment with its vision of happy times supported by a hefty bout of shopping, posting the last of the four poems in my list of universal experiences that hold too much silence — sex, death, drugs, money — seems very appropriate.
Here I’m recounting the responses to what counts as wealth in the larger world and my own reckoning of true wealth, having experienced a deep and encompassing love.
On this gray morning polished by slow snow, as we travel towards the turn of the sun, the winter solstice only hours away, may you find your own sources of wealth to celebrate.
Money
I sit on the window ledge of the restaurant
and talk to the woman beside me, her head
wrapped in a bandana, she lives on the streets,
she had a brain aneurysm, her family is lost
along the west coast, no chemicals,
it keeps her safe, she didn’t repeat herself
for a long time. Two men in a row tell me
it’s not my luck but my heart that makes me
put large bills in their cups, the blessing
I carry with me. You ate pears whole,
ignoring the core, to you all fruit.
Grace Mattern 