Poem of Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Verses

    Happy to not work this happy Thursday, 

    Spend time with family.

    The wife preparing for more meals

    The kids doing their youthful things, with friends and with each other.

    Part of me searching my soul, looking for past memories

    Keyword typing into my blog of eleven past years,

    Where I knew that I described the ghetto, defining it as I witnessed it

    

    Speaking, charlando with the daughter's friend

    Of poor neighborhoods, parts of cities that lack resources

    Medical wastelands, as she called it

    She, learning and experimenting at the psychological hospital

    Turning back, to me, to us.

    I can feel cheap and tawdry,

    Like maybe old clothes are too old and spent.

    Like maybe my money should be further spreading, more secure.

    That I should be wealthier and more secure, in all facets.

    For this I give thanks? What would be or could be?

    Am I thankful, really, at all, for what I have?

    What do we have?

    Peace. Food. Shelter.

    Love. Hope. Fellowship.

    Family.

    Creature comforts and entertainments.

    Jobs and careers that provide sustainment and enrichment.

    Are there things that we lack, itches that remain to be scratched?

    Sure, definitely, most assuredly, I and we lack so many things...

    Are we grateful for that?

    I think that we should be. 

    Grateful for the things, the life, the abundance and the richness that I do know and enjoy.

    Thanks for all the fish, thanks for Jon Phoenix at Camp Arif Jan, thankful for all of it.

    My parents, living and dead, my sisters, and former step-siblings and nieces and nephews.

    I write this now.

    For you and me and all who who may hear:

    We rejoice in thanksgiving,

    For life and what it means, and our places in it.

    Amen.