Friday, November 23, 2012

Thanksgiving Prayer


Thanksgiving Prayer, 2012

It is the day we give thanks
to be at a full table, and outside
the Olympics teeth the dusking
horizon. Here we’re surrounded
by certainty in the midst of the uncertain:
for mountains will not move even
for superstorms or homelands
in upheaval: the incontrovertible danger
of stepping outside: the losses we have
or haven’t named to one another.
But here: there is a richness.
There is a feeling of something complete:
meats waiting to loose the juices
that have been simmering in smoke,
lasagna and stuffings and casseroles
that are each a small history
of ourselves. Let us be grateful in our faith
that what is unseen is not unheard:
that families, ours and others,
extend beyond bloodlines, that we have arrived
here, where recipes steam
from memory at a place beyond
our griefs. Let us remember
that while we may be hundreds
of miles from the places we were born,
we are not far from home.

2 comments:

Alice B. said...

I like the idea in this poem that people far from home can make families from those around them, not necessarily blood relatives. I feel like students and travelers can relate to this congeniality.

Luke Johnson said...

Thanks, Alice. When I lived in Seattle, I would write a Thanksgiving prayer each year for our gathering of friends.They were usually informal, but always fun to write.