PO-EMotion #7- Acceptance

April is National Poetry Month. Every year, my dear friend (and poet Extraordinaire), Mary Lee Hahn chooses a theme, and writes a poem each day. Mary Lee blogs and posts her poems at two different places- YEAR OF READING and a fabulous new poetry blog POETREPOSITORY.

This year, Mary Lee has chosen the theme, "PO-EMotions," and will be writing about a different emotion each day. She promises, "This year, I will write a poem a day that either evokes an emotion, or uses an emotion word in the title or body of the poem." If you want to read more about the emotions she will be touching on, go here.

Today's emotion is acceptance.

"Acceptance"

Eight years old
stubby fingers
peel the card
golden brown,
scrolling medieval letters,
border of turquoise and maroon.
from under the glass
on my mother's walnut dresser.

God grant me 
the serenity
to accept the things 
I cannot change
courage 
to change the things I can
and wisdom
to know the difference.

Mama, what does this mean?
"Someday you will understand,"
she says.
"Someday
you will understand."

And she takes the card
from my hands
and slides it back under the glass.
"Leave it there,"
she says.
"I need it."

Half a century later
I need that prayer too.

But I need a few more lines.

God, help me to trust
that all is good
when life 
and my dreams
are on two 
completely different
opposite moving
trajectories.

And grant me the patience
to accept 
when change 
comes more slowly
than the Colorado River
carving the Grand Canyon
over all those
millions of years.

Most of all, God,
grant me 
joyendurancejoy
to smile and laugh
past the never ending 
sorrow ache
in the pit of my soul.

(C) Carol Wilcox, 2015