have some aches and pains
but able to walk
and reach dishes on the second shelf.
Enjoy a good book
sleep beside the love of your life
and have family that cares,
said the septuagenarian.

To be blessed is to
be with your forever family
who plays fetch for hours on end,
lets you get on the couch with them . . .
occasionally,
and get kibble treats for just sitting still,
said Zoey, the dog.

To be blessed is to
enjoy sunshine filtering through your leaves
provide shade to a couple’s picnic beneath your branches
sport reds and burnt oranges in the autumn season
mourn the dropping of leaves and skeleton shivers
knowing your resurrection will come next spring,
said the seventy-six year old Metasequoia.

Written for Day 5, NaPoWriMo where the prompt is to “try your hand at writing your own poem about how a pair or trio of very different things would perceive of a blessing.” The line “to be blessed” and the idea for my poem is taken from the poem used to illustrate the prompt, “The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog” by Alicia Ostriker.

*There is indeed a Metasequoia tree planted in the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University in 1948. It is one of the oldest and first of its kind to grow in North America in over two million years according to the City of Boston official website. The photo, however, is of a tree in Boston’s Public Garden taken during an autumn walk several years ago.