thanksgiving – radical druid

Gratitude

Published on April 28, 2005

Thank you for not giving me
the Powerball numbers from the astral plane;
for postponing that move to the Florida Keys
at least another decade;
for the psoriasis that precluded my career
as a playboy Lothario;
for the hesitation, that lack of killer instinct,
that limited my musical ambitions;
for my overdrawn bank account,
for the grey hair on my head,
for the gumption to quit college,
for the brain cells I’ve lost to self-medication,
for the little things.

Thank for the bathroom walls
rotting into disgusting flakes;
for the vinyl siding hanging down
against the untrimmed rose and jasmine bushes,
for the neighborhood watch that always reports
when my lawn misses a week’s worth of trimming.

Thank you for a self-centered teenage child
with a hand full of gimme, and a mouth full of much obliged
(although, truth be told, not too often with the thank you);
thanks for senior year expenses:
cap and gown
announcements
college applications
senior portraits
prom gowns
car insurance
cell phones

Thanks for all those unwelcome comparisons to other parents,
who obviously have their act together,
and know how to understand and respect
the needs of hypochondriac, selfish shopaholic children
who can’t be bothered to clean their own dishes,
cook their own food,
or even pick up the bath mat after themselves.

Thank you for these extra hundred pounds
that make me much more difficult to lug around
all this gratitude and appreciation.

Thanks for long hours, high standards of living,
neighbors that vote Republican and think they’re doing the right thing,
and will debate me,
like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons,
that society is to blame.

Thanks for the patriarchy, and for right-wing conservatives
that help me keep in perspective my own radically different value system.
Thanks for the 78% of Americans that call themselves Christians,
but act anything but. It helps me with my own hypocrisies.

Thanks for being there, even when you’re not there.
Thanks for the dawn, and for twilight, and the hours in between.

Thanks for all those payroll deductions that represent money
I’ll owe to the IRS anyway.
Thanks for credit card interest, for installment loans, for insurance premiums.
They help me keep it real.

Thanks especially for those big, flying cockroaches.
Killing them gives me some fleeting sense of power.

Thanks for keeping the sources of my inheritance alive
but not making me resent them for it.

Thanks for nothing. Thanks for everything.

I don’t say it often enough.

28 APR 2005

Thankfull

Published on November 23, 2004

There are so many little things
that make up life’s stretched years;
and pausing now, to list them,
I find my payments in arrears

for moments that have come and gone,
each adding to my store
of seeming insignificance
that whole, is so much more

than pieces, parts and bits of dust
drawn from the world’s extent
and left upon my doorstep, freely,
no charge evident.

The big gifts, they may thrill and make
their first few days so bright;
but soon, their glamour fades and dulls
like day will turn to night.

But little things, they will remain
beyond their seeming use,
bind fast together one’s whole life
and never let it loose.

So I am thankful for the small
and plain and unobscure;
For in the presence of such things
my faith in life is sure:

That every action, though unseen,
unnoticed by the throng
still makes a ripple in the pond
and sings, with its small song

That music humming underneath
the bustle of the world –
the little seed from which, in spring,
a flower may uncurl.

For these small things, and others too,
I thankful raise a toast;
And so remember, for a moment
just what matters most.

First Harvest

Published on November 28, 2002

As the seeds that sacrifice themselves
to change and so to grow,
we give ourselves unto the Mother
trusting we will sow:

our roots, the thoughts that keep us mindful;
stalks, the paths we roam;
leaves and fruits, the faith we nurture;
seeds, our coming home.

Bless the harvest, and the reaping
at this time of year;
give to us your strength of purpose,
let our words ring clear.

Bless us with your endless bounty
of and from the earth;
and as we are also seedlings
teach us of our worth.

Each seed and leaf and fruit and flower
dies so we may live;
so when it is our time for harvest,
let us likewise give:

our time, the measure of the seasons;
our minds, the gifts we share;
our hearts, the love we give each other;
souls, the journey there.

Bless the harvest, and the reaping;
thanks we give to thee.
Take from us this sense of longing;
let us simply be.

Bless us through embracing union
with and for the earth,
for we are the future’s seeds
awaiting its rebirth.

Bless the fruits of this first harvest,
freely shared and grown;
and may we, in growing onward,
give back of our own.

01 AUG 2001

I don’t know how the original pilgrims did it, but I am on a pilgrimage of my own. In our house, this is how one pagan gives thanks. This is a poem I wrote for First Harvest last year, and I like to think of it at every Harvest celebration.

Tag: thanksgiving

Gratitude

Thankfull

First Harvest