For Us, The Living - Susan S. Standen

[Larry Robinson]

For Us, The Living 
(Thanksgiving Poem)

On this day, we join our lives
In thanksgiving feast and light
But let us not forget
The other days, the other loves,
Whom we have long passed by.
Give thanks, O my friends,
For the living and the dead
For those who have gone before
To show us the way – or perhaps,
A way we do not want to go.
The instructions are clear for us,
My friends: To live until we die
To taste the sweet and the bitter
To love and to lose…
To forge our own way
Through thicket and briar
To build our own mountain-tops
To traverse our own valleys.
We are made, my friends,
Not to go alone!
Our hands were made for holding
Our hearts were made for love
Our souls were made to search
The daytime skies for stars,
The nighttime sky for dawn.
Reach your fingers out, ungloved
For thorns and roses both
Hold your sadness close inside
Your grief as much a gift
As joy; we need both rain
And sun to grow; we need
Forests to get lost in,
And dreams to lead us on.
Rejoice, my friends, in life
Which so many are denied
Bless the broken pieces
The memories that haunt
The children of our spirit
Who toss the autumn leaves
And leap into their piles
Releasing clouds of dust
The sweet piercing stems and sticks
Embracing the wholeness of life
From start to finish
And beyond.
So, give thanks, my friends,
For one another, the strangers
And the known, for those
Who look for stars at dawn
For those with races still un-run.
For here we are, the living
With hearts’ desires unmet
We find those in each others’ hands
And smiles, the comfort
Of joining lives today
And all the days to come.
 
	- Susan S. Standen
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