11/24/11

Late on Thanksgiving Day...

Image: TaraMarie

Just found this on a FaceBook friend's page and thought it a good reflection to share with you at the end of Thanksgiving Day...
Thanksgiving

I am surprised sometimes
by the suddenness of November:
beauty abruptly shed
to a common nakedness--
grasses deadened
by hoarfrost,
persistent memories
of people I've lost.

It is left to those of us
dressed in the hard
barky skin of experience
to insist on a decorum
that rises to the greatness
of a true Thanksgiving.

This is not a game,
against a badly scheduled team,
an uneven match on an uneven pitch.

This is Life.
This is Life.
This is Life.

Not politely mumbled phrases,
murmured with a practiced and meticulous earnestness.

Thanksgiving was born a breech-birth,
a screaming appreciation for being alive--
for not being one of the many
who didn't make it--
who couldn't moil through
another hardscrabble year
on tubers and scarce fowl.

Thanksgiving is for being you.
There are no thanks without you.

You are the power of hopeful promise;
you are the balky soil turning upon itself;
you are bursting forth in your experience.

You are not the person next to you--
not an image or an expectation.
You are the infinite and eternal you--
blessed, and loved, and consoled
by the utter commonness
and community of our souls.

We cry and we're held.
We love and we hold.

We are the harvest of God,
constantly renewed,
constantly awakened,
to a new thanksgiving.

- John Fitzsimmons



 

   
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3 comments:

  1. Thanks for a fabulous poem and a lovely treat.
    Hope you had a great thanksgiving day.
    Blessings

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, this was just what I needed to read right now. Sue

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dear Fr. Fleming,
    Thank you for sharing Joe Fitzsimmons' verse. I too am "always surprised by November". I can see it coming and am never prepared for the rush of memory and emotion. The words contained in "Thanksgiving" that I must try and carry in my head and heart throughout the year are:"You are not the person next to you--
    not an image or an expectation.
    You are the infinite and eternal you--blessed, and loved, and consoled by the utter commonness
    and community of our souls."
    Thank you for sharing words that help soothe my ache. K

    ReplyDelete

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