Clever, Childlike, Constructed

Clever, Childlike,  Constructed

Let’s talk about the first Thanksgiving,

            In this Common Era,

In Matthew’s eleventh,

In Jesus’s own words:

“O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,

Thank you for hiding

These things from those who think

Themselves wise

And clever, and for revealing

 Them to the childlike.”

           

Let’s talk about the first Thanksgiving,

            In this New, new World,

At makeshift Spanish docks

            In the sixteenth century.

Let’s talk about the first Thanksgiving,

            Among English Puritans,

In abandoned settlements

            In sixteen aught seven:

“That the day of our ships arrival

At the place assigned

For plantacon in the land of Virginia

 Shall be yearly and

Perpetually kept holy as a day of

Thanksgiving to Almighty God."

Let’s talk about the first Thanksgiving,

            In Boston after harvest,

After the first trying Winter,

Pilgrims thanking Natives, God.

Let’s talk about the first Thanksgiving,

            Ordered civilly, not

Religiously; Sixteen twenty three

            Buckles and Gods and Feathers

Breaking bread, maize harvest, fowl.

            After drought, more after rain:

“By this time harvest was come, and instead

Of famine now God gave

Them plenty…for which they blessed God.”

            Breaking fast. Thanking God.

            

Let’s talk about the first Thanksgiving,

            In America, by decree to, in

Seventeen eighty nine, by Washington:

“That great and glorious Being.”

Let’s talk about the first Thanksgiving,

            Amidst a Civil War, of brothers

Needing a feast around which to tarry,

            America’s new father proclaimed:

“No human counsel hath devised

Nor hath any mortal hand worked

Out these great things. They are the gracious

Gifts of the Most High God,

 Who, while dealing with us in anger

For our sins, hath…remembered mercy.”

Let’s talk about the first Thanksgiving,

            Yours and mine, his, hers,

Just last year? Amongst the lack and need:

            Remembering myths like truth.

Let’s talk about the first Thanksgiving,

            The last Thanksgiving, our

First, last, next, and after that. Thanks

            For things we may never know.

Indians and Pilgrims breaking bread,

Indians and Pilgrims at war.

Puritans and rebels making nation,

Puritans and rebels at war.

Americans and Americans breaking bread

Americans and Americans at war.

Let’s talk about the last Thanksgiving,

            Giving thanks for giving thanks,

Oblivious to myth: to truth: words.

            Clever, childlike: Thanks for thanks.

           

Read more of my poetry, essays, and stories at Momentitiousness.com