Lucky

By Gabrielle Galchen

In the context of mortality, the pandemic and the imminent impacts of climate change, it is beyond important to remember how objectively lucky we are to be alive. There is a certain priceless appreciation in simply existing and breathing comfortably within ourselves.

Lucky to be alive in the context of time:
you and me and our mortality.

Lucky to be alive to smell the seas of these clocks:
Ebb and flow, ebb and flow,
My voice’s cuckoo bird will never slumber.
I will never stop seeing kaleidoscopes of corals;
My chest is shielded with seashells,
Ears brimmed with humming sea-salts and doves’ lullabies.

Lucky to be alive, to be;
At night I dab my feet in a sand-scale 
That smells of cornflowers and roses 
Weaved into purple olive branches. 

To be alive is to exist is to mark:
I won’t float, 
I won’t simmer,
I won’t cease—

My span is made of clouds, I know,
But I dream of infinity enough to see 
My reflection in tree rings. 

Lucky to be, to breathe, to beat:
I am,
I am,
I am,

Lucky to be alive before the screech of
Ravens sermonizes wildfires, 
Lucky to be alive during pixelated spontaneities
And self-figmented sunrises;
Lucky to be alive after winds whispering of 
Past muddied selves dripped to new horizons. 

What we see is what we are,
A mold born of spiders or bees
Into creeping grey webs or honeyed gold. 

Process

I had a prompt that was “lucky to be alive,” and this is where it took me! I started thinking about this luck in the context of mortality, but then I also considered the impacts of the pandemic and climate change on public mental health. Though it is obviously easier said than done, as I wrote I wanted to spread the message that it’s crucial to appreciate the mere fact of our existence, as life is filled with chaos and spontaneities that we can never predict. I attempted to take an almost positive view of existentialism and uncertainty, and I felt that the overall joyful tone would fit a more lyrical, song-like poem (spoken-word).