Songs of Thanksgiving

1

The autumn that wanders and wakes in your mind

hears the songs of birds keeping the world

close to joy, and joins their voices in the homes

they have known since birth. What season

can better hold the pureness of their songs?

We wonder and breathe deep where we are.

2

What a slow home the world makes.

What awesome hymns plodding the earth--a glacier

hunting a new valley, or mountains growing to keep

the plains in shade--beg us to listen?

The world was made cold.

Our homes are quiet cathedrals; we look outside

at a cold world and, snowflake-thronged, gather.

Pray for such weather!

Give thanks for a world that forms itself slowly,

for blood that needs warmth

and for bodies that live in this constant need.

3

From September through November the fields

are a family; their colors join hands, clasping

through the cold,

and the air adopts us.

We come indoors and bring our famlies.

Someone starts a fire. The talk dozes toward dinner.

(Our slow, slow homes guide us to tables

full of food). All the relatives have given notice

that they love us a little more this year,

and the baby in the other room wakes, crying.

Our bodies breathe close to the fire.

In the quiet before dinner someone says grace

and laughs at the end. We eat;

the table turns in everyone's direction.

4

Wherever we are

we are breathing this air.

from Days By Themselves (Poems)

Brooks Roddan

Blue Earth Press, 2006