Week 47: Thanksgiving
Paul gave to the Thessalonians, and to us all, three “always” challenges: Rejoice always. Pray ceaselessly. And be thankful in every circumstance. Joyfully, prayerfully and thankfully, today.
11/18:
Turning Positive
Lately I am looking west at sunrise
Watching the autumn colors change from gray
To vivid blue and gold, seeing the day
Awakened from the opposite horizon.
Where the rising sun once had a way
Of drawing me toward its eastern skies
To see the morning spark before my eyes
I am compelled to look the other way now,
To find the russet brown of the tall grass prairies,
The richest yellows reds and remnant greens
Of mid October trees, the oaken black
And birch white of the wood as the season changes,
As the azure sky reflects a breezeless pond
With the warmth of an autumn sun upon my back.
11/19:
Brooding Barn
The brooding barn was an old hen perched
On a tilting nest at a hillside farm.
Her eggs were lifelong memories,
To the very end kept safe and warm,
And now that she’s gone, the eggs are hatching,
Generating chicks dispatching
Hungry peeps with a sweet refrain:
The barn’s expired, but we remain.
So, trouble not at the season’s end
That the hen is dead. Remember how
She was a shelter from the rain,
She was a friend to horse and cow,
And when they left, the children found her,
Rebuilt her nest and ran around her
With energy that’s still sustained.
The barn has fallen, but we remain
To never forget how that barn stood tall
And caught the sunrise on the hill
And defined the farm. Or so it seemed:
There is a windmill creaking still,
Just one mile north of Yankee Hollow,
And still an easy pace to follow
On Sawmill Creek at Loyalty Lane.
The barn is gone, but there remains
The Andrew Path, the winding trails
The planted pines, the budding oaks,
The setting sun, a billion stars,
And time to visit with the folks,
And the lasting word from Dick O’Brien
Who has no time for country cryin’:
Enjoy! Sit back! Don’t give a darn!
The barn is dead? Long live the barn!
11/20:
Beside Still Waters
A Restatement of Psalm 23
The person of God
is a shepherd, my shepherd,
who assures I will have
all that I need,
A place to rest
and be refreshed
in the greenest pastures
beside the stillest waters,
A path to follow
to righteousness
in the name of the one
who leads me,
A prayer to say
as I walk through the shadows
that I may never feel afraid,
even in the face of my enemies,
A presence here
to comfort me
with your shepherd’s staff
and the strength of your stand.
You prepare for me
a banquet feast;
you pour fragrant oils all over me
and fill my cup to its capacity
And you promise me
your grace to follow me everywhere,
your loving mercy until the day I die
and your place, a place for me to live forever.
11/21:
Peace
I clean my house
the way I pay my debts
the way I find my peace:
a little at
a time (a resting place
in greener fields
now and then, forgiveness
by the silent
waters). So far,
time's been good to me
but in the end
I want to live to see
no more to clean, no more
to pay, and PEACE,
such peace that passes
understanding, peace
that supercedes
my earthly needs
and leaves
this tired world,
this plodding pace
behind.
I don't know if or when
I'll ever find
that better place, but
let me still
believe
that if I serve my time
and look for peace
a little at a time
I'll be released.
11/22:
Table Grace
Around the table, tradition goes,
each person has to say one thing
they’re thankful for, a word, a phrase.
We take our turns with the usual string
of gratitudes and platitudes:
for food and family, most of all,
but also health and love and God.
We try to be original
but every year’s about the same,
just as it should be I suppose,
a fitting capsule for this time,
the simple words of hungry souls.
11/23:
The Real Thing
I would like to say
that there is nothing
like the quenching power
of a Diet Coke,
ignoring for one
indulgent moment
what other poets
choose to write about.
I would like to note
the pleasant feeling
of carbonation
and the sweetness of
zero calories
and the bitter hint
of a grownup taste,
the icy chill, the
feeling of steel and
the perk of caffeine,
but I’d have to add
quickly, being one
from that grownup world
of bittersweetly
carbonated gas
how the “real thing” is
hardly everything
and “nothing like” is
much less than it seems
after the bubbles
die down and the air
takes the chill away,
when the buzz wears off
and you hunger for
more, anything more
than the flattened
aluminum taste of
water in disguise.
With wisdom and age,
everything is less
than you thought before,
more than you supposed,
nothing like they told
you when you were young,
something that your youth
might spend all its life
trying to understand,
something like the power
of water with no
color, taste or fizz
poured without ice
into a lucid glass
and then lifted up
to the waiting lips
of simplicity.
I need nothing more.
11/24 (Thanksgiving Day):
Meleagris Gallopavo
When country fiddlers held a convention in Danville,
the big money went to a barn dance artist who played
Turkey in the Straw, with variations...
— Carl Sandburg
Some say the first Americans had named it for its
cluck
Or that Chris called it “tuka” for a peacock he
mistook
(By Chris I mean Columbus; Tuka’s Tamil for
peacock,
And Tamil is the language of Ceylon), but by the
book
The Brits declared it first and for all time the bird
from Turkey,
While Science called it meleagris, out of
Malagasy
(Relating it to Guinea fowls, with Latin terms so
classy
They get excused for making things perpetually
murky).
Each stop along the trade route added names to
the imposter:
The Palestinians dubbed the bird an Ethiopian
Rooster,
The Dutch decreed it kalkoen, a Malibarian
coaster
(From Calicut of Malibar in India, southwester).
The commonest of turkey tags, for Turks and
many others,
Is Indian Chicken, for the land Columbus
misdiscovered:
Thus hindi, dindon, indyk, indjuk, hindishga, all
brothers
Of the nascent New World Order of the Turkey.
Meanwhile, over
In India, some Indians have christened it
“peru”,
Deferring to the name their Portugallan traders
knew.
But Peru never knew the bird until the Spanish
shipped it;
They called it gallopavo, for the peacock Chris descripted
(By Chris I mean Columbus; pavo’s peacock;
gallo’s chicken;
And Portugallans are the chicken-trading
Portuguese).
And so this story goes: the plot unwinds, the titles
thicken,
But dinner’s on the table; you can call it what you please.
There is no grand denouement in the course of
human nature
And from the very start the turkey’s oldest
nomenclature,
Presented by the Aztecs in their native
Nahuatl,
Has been a word the world could never say:
Xuehxolotl.
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