All First a Gift

billboards, copper wires and computers with integrated circuit boards, sawed lumber for sale in board feet, tunnel boring machines, a market of kind of bored teenagers with Beats headphones and file sharing music apps, space shuttles, rocket ships, visible stone aggregates in the concrete steps and galvanized metal handrails to ascend while praying, all first a gift.

electric power grids charging, bare wire conductors, networks of live currents pushing life sustenance into elevated water tanks, storing pumped water quenching thirsty lines, miles and miles, flowing faucets, and flowering spigots downhill, spent and tired wastewater destined to treatment plants to be stripped and injected with new life then released into new

streams of consciousness underlain by the soil, sand, and gravel extracted to be shared among the all consuming building projects hungry first for foundations, earth metals refined and shaped make mighty towers that send and receive digital communication messages in the millions to and from the masses, natural resources that we did not first create, all first a gift.

high pressure distillation and steam produces products for the prominent and poor alike, pomade hair gel walking down the promenade to the bank of portable porcelain, no, plastic potties, bright bulbs, hot stoves, hamburger patties, and rain showers, silk flowers and a trip to the automatic teller, appliances, and washing machines, tell me are these not all first a gift?

human creativity, spirit and ingenuity too, drive throughs, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, potatoes and stew, Berlin garden chairs, real hair wigs, plants and twigs with medicinal potential, migraine medication, healthcare and hearing aids, vacation resorts, interstates, governments, legal constitutions, automotive shops, junk yards, mobile home parks, city and suburb flats, Apple Pay, smart phone checking deposits, electronic GPS and paper maps, shuttered paper plants, newspapers, wallpaper and micro bandaids for paper cuts and paper mache puppets, plant based pigments for paint, tree sap for rubber and chewing gum, patents, trademarks, and copyrights for invention, pirate and hacker prevention, educational institutions, law and order intervention, monetary systems, churches and temples, stock markets, fish markets, farmer markets, correctional facilities, mental institutions, immigration and pregnancy centers, all first a gift.

weapons of mass destruction, the warped realities of the insolent and ungrateful rabble, with mean miens - evil refusing the gift, grabs the apple, pride our own making, selfishly taking, a perversion freely chosen, war, hunger, weeds, disease, pests, disasters, poverty, rust, decay, drugs, blight, bullets, theft, fornication, infidelity. Moral and Virtue, learned and practiced, all first a gift.

earth, sun, moon, air, rain, wind, and the ozone layer, natural gifts like gravity and fire, a perilously precise cosmological constant (I perspire!), all first a gift. guardian angels, our life, our death, all first a gift, heavenly eternity too. that little brown raw hide leather book that I draw out of a black leather satchel, taking my next breath, before penning this final line, all first a gift. God the good giver...yes, all first a gift.

- Gary Edward Geraci