On Thanking Day
[size=75](October 6, 2007)[/size]
What does a free man beg thanks for this day?
This late day?
What is thanks but a full belly salted with fear?
Or, is it more?
I have seen the white sun glare upon the desert…
And, it was good,
And, it was beautiful–
And, pray beyond prayer that it be true!
I thank not for gadgets,
I thank not for sonics,
I thank not for clothing,
Nor for health,
Nor police,
Nor anything under Sol that the works of man can give me.
Am I faithless, then?
Am I fey?
What can Thanking day give me?
But…a pause?
A Pythagorean comma in the consuming wastes?
A breath between what has gone and what will come;
A breath between what is mine and what others lack;
A breath between flesh and the Mind that sustains it.
In a breath, a single breath, can a reorientation come;
A tiny deviation that fixes a ship’s course between the stars;
A little thing, that brings on many changes;
A footstep that summons disaster,
Or brings a friend from yon.
I thank not for touching faces, for they depart.
I thank not for memories, for they fade.
I thank not for life itself, for it will pass.
What does a free man beg thanks for, then?
I beg thanks for water–
Flowing through the veins of kith and alien alike–
Held back from eyes of foes made friends—
Filling the pause between the worlds
In which alone the mind can see
And move the flesh of many friends
Which guided change the desert’s face
And justify our weary race.
In from the desert I emerge,
And, to the table kin converge,
And, smelling feast our smiles delect
As from the Burden we defect
But, still I know and thank it there
That moisture fills the ‘spiring air
And wets us round the table full
With fattened meat, and pause to mull.