Happy Thanksgiving and Perhaps the World Ends Here (Joy Harjo) and Family Reunion (Maxine Kumin)

Good morning and happy Thanksgiving to all.  I am sitting in the study on a cold, rainy morning, and everything is quiet except the wind.  All the beds in the house are filled for the first time in months; even the dog went back to sleep after I slipped out of bed.  And here I am, feeling the pull of the page.  Last night, both kids went off to a hip hop concert downtown, and as usual, I worried when I hadn't heard them come in by midnight.  Something woke me, and I got up to use the bathroom at about 1am, and there they were.  Both of my beautiful teens sitting on Will's bed laughing at something on the computer while curled up on top of each other.  Did I say that the dog was curled up there too?  Nice scene, that's for sure.  And I know how much the boy watches out for his lovely, skimpily-clad sister at concerts like this.  I realize how much I miss him when he's at college at times like this, but here's the other thing.  Watching him mature in between our glimpses of him is a glorious thing.  He told me that he has to read a great deal more in college than in high school, and that he is beginning to enjoy it.  "Mom, I'm really learning things!"  Ok, that was a little late in coming, but I'll take it.  Anyway, just looking at them and seeing how much they love each other is so wonderful.  After all the crap they've been through with their teetering parents, they have come through the fire with grace and wisdom.  Haleluia.  Today is a great day for rejoicing and feeling grateful.  Happy Thanksgiving!  Here are a few pieces to savor:

Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

 

Family Reunion

by Maxine W. Kumin 

The week in August you come home,

adult, professional, aloof,

we roast and carve the fatted calf

—in our case home-grown pig, the chine

garlicked and crisped, the applesauce

hand-pressed. Hand-pressed the greengage wine.

Nothing is cost-effective here.

The peas, the beets, the lettuces

hand sown, are raised to stand apart.

The electric fence ticks like the slow heart

of something we fed and bedded for a year,

then killed with kindness’s one bullet

and paid Jake Mott to do the butchering.

In winter we lure the birds with suet,

thaw lungs and kidneys for the cat.

Darlings, it’s all a circle from the ring

of wire that keeps the raccoons from the corn

to the gouged pine table that we lounge around,

distressed before any of you was born.

Benign and dozy from our gluttonies,

the candles down to stubs, defenses down,

love leaking out unguarded the way

juice dribbles from the fence when grounded

by grass stalks or a forgotten hoe,

how eloquent, how beautiful you seem!

Wearing our gestures, how wise you grow,

ballooning to overfill our space,

the almost-parents of your parents now.

So briefly having you back to measure us

is harder than having let you go.

Cheers!

Thanksgiving and Camas Lillies

All, I've been blogging (though intermittently) long enough to feel increasing tension if I don't sit down and write.  Sitting here now,  I feel embraced by a loving page; how nice.  I have had quite a week last week.  In fact, I think it might just be one of the best weeks I've ever had.  I have had the good fortune to be part of a leadership group at my new fab church, and we meet every Sunday night for several hours.  After spending a weekend with this group, I feel a strong bond growing with this wonderful group as we tread over territories of faith and doubt and the like.  Also, I had two birthday parties last week.  Even though my birthday is at the end of September, I found myself upside down in an aerial yoga class with the gals and then at dinner with others; turning 50 has been remarkably full of fun so far.  Ok, have you ever been upside down in a large red sling trying to speak to your inner ears so you keep down the nausea and look....mmm...not idiotic?  We raised a glass afterwards and a friend had brought a larger-than-life cut-out of my father, the headmaster, and we put him in a sling too...with a glass of wine!  A few days later, we had a small dinner, and I felt loved and cared for and free enough to dance with abandon at the end of the evening.....hmm.  For all these things and many more, I feel incredible gratitude.  There was my husband of many years struggling through a remarkable poem his sister wrote.....for me!  There was my college room-mate and soul sister reciting Katherine Hepburn in Much Ado about Nothing, for me (hey nonny, nonny), etc, etc, etc.  wow.  Gratitude and thanksgiving.  Unfortunately,  there is also much suffering among dear friends these days, too--suffering  and remarkable strength.  I'm learning that these are often  intertwined--hope and loss, suffering and strength, light and dark. Perhaps we need some dark to truly see the light.   hmmm.  Well, on to some poetry I really like

Thanksgiving (Lynn Ungar)

I have been trying to read

the script cut in these hills—

a language carved in the shimmer of stubble

and the solid lines of soil, spoken

in the thud of apples falling

and the rasp of corn stalks finally bare.

The pheasants shout it with a rusty creak

as they gather in the fallen grain,

the blackbirds sing it over their shoulders in parting,

and gold leaf illuminates the manuscript

where it is written in the trees.

Transcribed onto my human tongue

I believe it might sound like a lullaby,

or the simplest grace at table.

across the gathering stillness

simply this: “For all that we have received,

dear God, make us truly grateful.”. 

Camas Lilies (Lynn Ungar)

Consider the lilies of the field,
the blue banks of camas opening
into acres of sky along the road.
Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the natives ground bulbs
for flour, how the settler’s hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?
And you—what of your rushed and
useful life? Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything,
leaving only a note: “Gone to the fields
to be lovely. Be back when I’m through
with blooming.”
Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass
from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake.
Of course, your work will always matter.
Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.