from Thanksgiving Day 11-23-2006
Let there be thanks,
in all possible directions, let
thanks lift like clouds of tiny birds
out of all the trees, let
thanks like mist out of the crashing
of every kind of wave rise
and reach our eyes and nostrils, let
all of us hear the vast chorus of thanks
the electrons sing to their protons for casting them
angrily out into orbit, as otherwise
they'd never meet and forge the miraculous
molecular bonds of life, let
thanks fall down from the void in applause
for the chaos variety show of creation, let
this rain flood and spill wide of our rivers
and drown us in its elation, let
no one be spared immersion in the deluge
of thanks, let pain be thanked for showing us
our spirits, let these awkward angles
of bony existence be thanked for bearing
our strivings, our crimes, our entanglements, let
our breakdown into the sludge of the next
forest be thanked. Let our humbling
humiliations, even of war, be thanked, let
shame be thanked, let rage be thanked,
for how else are we to yearn for the loss
of these hungry shells of self, let
thanks come pouring spontaneously out
of our pores toward our own disappearance
into the oneness we forget we are, let
thanks for the incessant emptiness inside us
like a reservoir of desire fill
the air between us, let
thanks be the flood and the fire, let
this cosmos have its little song.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jed A. Myers is a Seattle poet and musician whose writing has been published in various journals, posted on web sites, heard on radio, and performed, mostly by Jed, in an array of settings in the Pacific Northwest. He’s won several regional awards, and hosts a regular poetry gathering in his part of town. His loose network of collaborators, ArtsforHearts, puts on benefits in local spaces for a wide range of real life causes.
Photograph by Jane Sherry. Photo of the poet with permission by Jed Myers.