Basket of Grace

And in that basket
are all the things
a body gets
in a lifetime:

The long legs
the natural grace

The way with words
or people
or numbers
or animals

The force field that makes money
or love
or ideas
or children
come to them first

The gene soup
that makes eyes blue
stomachs sturdy
loins fruitful
brains prodigious

Even the luck,
the ponies
the Kojak parking
the pair of pants on sale
or the person of their dreams available
at the exact moment
where need and want meet,
even that
is in the basket.

There will be days
when you look down at your basket and marvel
at the wonderful
wonderful
things inside

And there will be days
when you cannot bring yourself to look
at all
or rather
where the only place you can look
is at the basket next to you
and with longing.

But every day
someone is looking at your basket
with longing

Every day
someone would trade baskets with yours
sight unseen

I have been
in all of those places
and mostly
I am grateful
for the grace
that forgave my foolishness

This is my basket
to carry
and uncover
layer by layer
day by day
year by year

And sometimes
story by story.

May your basket overflow
with beautiful things
of incomparable joy
and wonder

And when it does not
may you be visited
by the same grace that sat down beside me
to show me the beauty
and the joy
and the wonder
I could not see
— Colleen Wainwright

So the photo you see above is my photo basket. I had been collecting my photo shoot props (wings, feathers, a tennis ball or two) in a non-descript paper bag. But inspired by Colleen’s poem, I decided they needed a more worthy container. I so love my props because they remind of the joy and wonder that is within all of us and what I so want to reveal when I have the privledge of photographing someone. I want to know, and maybe show, my subject’s  layers, find out what’s in their basket. We may never use my basket’s feathers or wings or  other delights but I know they are there and present everytime i click.