Thanksgiving - Cynthia Poten

[Larry Robinson]

Thanksgiving
 
The feast of life
     asks nothing of us
            but our death,

our final giving back
     for all the death 
             that feeds us
 
It’s only what we ask 
     of ourselves that makes
            this day holy
 
only what we praise -
     how brightly
            the parsley gleams
 
only what we bless -
     the hands, so many hands
            that brought abundance
     
to our laden tables,
     our warm nests of instinct
            and care
 
only what we give -
     to the hungry, the
            desperate, the homeless
 
as winter scents 
     rich with coming rain
bask in the waning light
 
and resins nipped awake
     by wind’s cold teeth
ride the quickened air
                  
only what we revere –
     as Sun hums another close
            to Earth’s turning
 
and pulsing multitudes 
     of leaf and grass    
shift into silence

- Cynthia Poten