Golden Shovel of Naomi Shihab Nye’s I still have everything you gave me

The common things given. It
Could be a grandmother’s quilt is
In a chest, a father’s dusty
Old leather coat—& so on
These things passed to us, or the
Things given, the sepia edges
Of photos slightly
Bent. When luck is rotten.
When hope is gone I
Wear my grandfather’s hat, guard
It from the wind. Wear it
The way he did tilted back without
A care, casual, as if thinking.
Of a Yiddish joke. Focus
On grace’s brim, to keep it on
During any storm. Witness it:
Who carried you through the streets once
So close it was as if your own chest had a
Second heart. How many times a year
Or decades a gone face returns when
The leaves unfurl, or the snow hushes I
Cannot contain the way I shake
Without fever or cold, a certain scent it
Shivers up out
Of the marrow & in
The lungs & one is wailing the
Way the winter wind
Announces its arrival. I
Cannot claim to know more than do
The gypsies with their coffee grinds, not
Even the fractures in my bones that ache
Can predict the rain. What I
Have not witnessed in this life would
Not be measured by the chimes, not
At night, I wake with nothing left to trade.