The Fierce Thanks

It was easy for you to sneer at God,
despise the weak gifts of the earth, disdain your life,
and weigh your reward in scales of empty hands:
what was harder was to pull out of the scrod
the lump of jewel the fire licked to ashes
futilely, out of mud and time
the sentient act of grace, electric water
resolved in standing bone and meat, the fire
of mind consorting with the shifting sun
and the strobing universe of dark and light
in our accident of nerves and waking dream
we call our lives: to thank the dreadfulness
and reigning chaos for its munificence,
faithful that it, like us, can know and see
and even feel out of the dark that whirled
you into vagabond being, between flies and comets.