Thanksgiving

Every year we call it down upon ourselves,

the chaos of the day before the occasion,

the morning before the meal. Outdoors,

the men cut wood, fueling appetite

in the gray air, as Nana, Arlene, Mary,

Robin—whatever women we amount to—

turn loose from their wrappers the raw,

unmade ingredients. A flour sack leaks,

potatoes wobble down counter tops

tracking dirt like kids, blue hubbard erupts

into shards and sticky pulp when it's whacked

with the big knife, cranberries leap away

rather than be halved. And the bird, poor

blue thing—only we see it in its dead skin—

gives up for good the long, obscene neck, the gizzard,

the liver quivering in my hand, the heart.

So what? What of it? Besides the laughter,

I mean, or the steam that shades the windows

so that the youngest sons must come inside

to see how the smells look. Besides

the piled wood closing over the porch windows,

the pipes the men fill, the beers

they crack, waiting in front of the game.

Any deliberate leap into chaos, small or large,

with an intent to make order, matters. That's what.

A whole day has passed between the first apple

cored for pie, and the last glass polished

and set down. This is a feast we know how to make,

a Day of Feast, a day of thanksgiving

for all we have and all we are and whatever

we've learned to do with it: Dear God, we thank you

for your gifts in this kitchen, the fire, 

the food, the wine. That we are together here.

Bless the world that swirls outside these windows—

a room full of gifts seeming raw and disordered,

a great room in which the stoves are cold,

the food scattered, the children locked forever 

outside dark windows. Dear God, grant

to the makers and keepers power to save it all. 

-- Linda McCarriston,