The Poets’ Corner: Making Poetry a Tradition at the Thanksgiving Table
Because I have has so many requests from readers to reprint my selection of poems for the Thanksgiving table, I graciously offer them once again. Contrary to the belief for many in America Thanksgiving means football, parades led by Santa, and sales, sales, sales, Thanksgiving actually offers us a time for reflection, for thought, for appreciation and celebration of that which we have. Whether you will share your table with many or few, or perhaps choose to dine alone, here are some poems, thoughts and proverbs to read, to think about and discuss at the Thanksgiving table.
“We give Him thanks for our supporters, who had charge of our harvest.
We give thanks that the voice of the Great Spirit can still be heard.”
” Traditional Iroquois prayer, translated by 19th century political advocate Harriet
Maxwell Converse, the first white woman to be named a Chief of the Iroquois Confederacy
…of Tahoe
The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book ” a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day.
” Mark Twain
Otherwise
I got out of bed
On two strong legs.
It might have been
Otherwise. I ate
Cereal, sweet
Milk, ripe, flawless
Peach. It might
Have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
To the birch wood.
All morning I did
The work I love.
At noon I lay down
With my mate. It might
Have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
At a table with silver
Candlesticks. It might
Have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
In a room with paintings
On the walls, and
Planned another day
Just like this day.
But one day, I know,
It will be otherwise.
” Jane Kenyon
As the leaves of
the trees are said to absorb all noxious qualities
of the air, and
to breathe forth
a purer atmosphere,
so it seems to me as
if they drew from
us all sordid and angry passions,
and breathed forth peace and
philanthropy. There is a severe
and settled majesty in woodland
scenery that enters into the soul,
and dilates and elevates it,
and fills it with noble inclinations.
” Washington Irving
Poem in Thanks
Lord Whoever, thank you for this air
I’m about to in-and exhale, this hutch
In the woods, the wood for the fire,
The light ” both lamp and the natural stuff
Of leaf-back, fern, and wing.
For the piano, the shovel
For ashes, the moth-gnawed
Blankets, the stone-cold water,
Stone-cold: thank you.
Thank you, Lord, coming for
To carry me here ” where I’ll gnash
It out, Lord, where I’ll calm
and work, Lord, thank you
for the goddamn birds singing!
” Thomas Lux
Nov. 2, Voltaire (1694)
Nov. 22, George Eliot (1819)
Nov. 25, Gail Sheehy (1937)
Nov. 26, Charles Schultz (1922)
Nov. 27, L. Sprague de Camp (1907)
Adults (fiction): “The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind-and Almost Found Myself-On the Pacific Crest Trail” by Dan White
Young Adult (ages 13-17): “Airhead” by Meg Cabot
Juvenile (fourth to sixth grade): “One Small Step” by Phillip Kerr
