After the leftovers have been spooned
into storage containers and the forks
are all snuggled back in their drawers,
when the few who are left are sprawled
on the couch or curled on the floor,
and we’re sleepy-eyed and sated
and telling stories and laughing
at ourselves, this is my favorite part
of the day, when all of the fixing is done
and we settle in with questions we know
we will never answer, and instead
of solutions we are left holding
nothing but ache and love for the world
and for each other, and somehow
instead of despair, this utter lack
of resolution serves up such
gladness—we’re here to meet
what is hard together.
Posts Tagged ‘thanksgiving’
After
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged family, feast, love, questions, thanksgiving on November 27, 2025| 1 Comment »
One on Thanksgiving
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged paradox, prayer, thanksgiving on November 29, 2024| 13 Comments »
one hand opens in grief
the other in gratitude
pressing them together to pray
A Partial List of Gratefulnesses
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratefulness, thanksgiving on November 27, 2024| 2 Comments »
There’s the giddy gratefulness that sparkles
like morning sun on the river and the peaceful
gratefulness that soothes like warm wind.
There’s the gratefulness that almost hurts
as it squeezes tight around the heart,
the gratefulness that arrives quiet as cat’s paws
in the night, and the gratefulness that thrums
and swirls in us as if we’re a sky full of starlings.
Sometimes it opens as slowly
as a giant bromeliad in Bolivia, taking years,
even decades before we are ready to see it.
Sometimes it comes dressed in black.
There’s begrudging gratefulness, bedazzling
gratefulness, gratefulness that stands
on its hind legs and roars. Gratefulness
that soars like a tetherless kite. Gratefulness
that sneaks in mouselike—like an ermine
who knows just where to find the small gaps
in the rocks. Every gratefulness a chance
to glimpse what is sacred right here,
to remember our place in the living world.
Every gratefulness the chance to revel again
in the sheer miracle that we belong.
It’s Like This
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratefulness, science, thank you, thanks, thanksgiving on November 23, 2023| 2 Comments »
“The odds of you being alive are basically zero.”
—Dina Spector reporting the work of Dr. Ali Binazir, Business Insider, June 11, 2012
It’s like this. The sun itself
is constantly moving through space,
and yet it never leaves us.
Add this to the list of marvels—
like how a glass of water
was once a cloud,
like how love can grow in us
despite sorrow, fear.
Given such gifts,
one must wonder how it is
our arms aren’t constantly raised
in spontaneous praise for life.
I know and you know
why sometimes our hands stay down.
But now, standing still together,
even as we’re spinning
and racing through space,
even if it’s only a whisper,
when faced with the truth
that great forces hold
our lives in place,
it feels right to say
thank you, thank you,
eyes lifting, heart trembling,
the improbable earth
so solid beneath our feet.
Family Recipe
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, recipe, san francisco, secret, thanksgiving on November 25, 2022| 7 Comments »
All day, I search for it,
the secret ingredient—
something my father
believed in. He always
made stuffing
with something extra,
something special,
then made us guess
what the secret was.
All day, I notice
what goes into a day—
a total of 86,400 seconds,
and in every second
a choice of how
we will meet that second.
If the day is stuffing,
then this day has
some unusual ingredients:
a couple dozen folks
in swimsuits on the sidewalk,
one woman with a dying parrot
she has tucked in her sweater,
a whole garden full of lemon trees,
one ripe hour alone
in the sunshine on a rooftop,
a generous measure of laughter
as my daughter and husband and I
climb a near-vertical hill,
and bittersweet tears
as I think of Dad
and his love of secret ingredients.
All day, the world
shows off its flavors.
All day, I revel in the recipe,
this extraordinary day,
something that can never
be made the same way again.
Thanks
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged palace of fine arts, san francisco, thank you, thanksgiving on November 23, 2022| 14 Comments »
Inside each honest thank you
is a giant open-air pavilion
beside a curving and generous pond
that reflects the sky and is home
to cormorants, white egrets,
turtles, and humble ducks.
There is laughter that rings
through the archways,
wonder that wanders the paths.
There are angels that circle
each thank you spoken with love,
whether we believe in angels or not.
Every sincere expression of thanks
is a choice to meet what is good in the world
and to honor it with our attention.
There are thousands and thousands
of reasons to forget we are grateful,
and yet just one genuine thank you
builds an improbable palace
out of the moment, fills it with beauty,
shares it with the world, asks nothing in return.
Inviting Obama for Dinner
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dinner, kids, manners, mothering, obama, thanksgiving on November 28, 2020| 2 Comments »
I no longer remember much of etiquette
from reading White Gloves and Party Manners,
so when Obama doesn’t come to our house
for Thanksgiving dinner, I needn’t worry
that I’ve forgotten how to address a former president
in an informal setting. I do, however, remind my kids
that if Obama were sitting with us,
they would want to remember to put their napkins
in their laps. They do.
And you probably don’t want to lick the serving spoon,
I add, as it goes from the cranberry sauce
into an eager mouth. And we don’t talk about farting.
The whole time Obama isn’t eating mashed potatoes with us,
we wonder what he is eating with his family
and what they are talking about,
and if he might not just accept an invitation
to our home for dinner. If he did,
we agree we would refrain from using the knife
with the butter dish to butter our own bread.
And, uncertain how to address him,
we’d just ask him personally how he’d like be called.
I’d like to believe that Obama might actually show up.
He’d knock at the door in his elegant and humble way,
no fanfare, holding a side dish of roasted brussels sprouts,
and we’d listen as he told us what he’s up to these days.
As it is, it’s kinda fun when he doesn’t show up
and we act like ourselves. I eat my green beans
with my fingers—they taste better that way.
My daughter plays with the candlewax.
Sometimes, I lick my plate.
At Some Point It’s Clear
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, mistake, sweetness, thanksgiving on November 26, 2020| 6 Comments »
So little of life’s sweetness
can be planned. Oh, meals,
of course, and sometimes
children. But mostly, joy
loves a surprise, loves
when schedules get shuffled
and agendas unravel and
suddenly there’s a space
for bliss to slip in dressed
in calamity’s clothes.
So easy to praise what
looks like success—
but teach me to give thanks
for the mess—
whatever is burnt, broken,
wounded, fumbled, missed.
Teach me to be open in each
unscripted moment
to the bloom of gratefulness.
Thanksgiving
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, poem, poetry, thanksgiving, walking on November 28, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Perhaps that is when Thanksgiving
matters most—when you
walk the empty street alone,
scarred and scared and unsure.
That’s when giving thanks
becomes less of an abstract and more
like the way to take a next breath—
something that seems elusive, but
in fact it’s essential, and it’s right there,
just waiting for you to meet it,
to open yourself, to let it in.
Yes, for now it feels worthy of thanks
that the air is cool and clean and feels
good in the lungs, and the feet know
to walk you closer toward yourself
and the day holds you, holds you
in its soft gray arms, throws
a carpet of dry leaves at your feet,
suggests you keep walking into your life.
The Night Before Thanksgiving
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brother, memory, poem, poetry, self image, sister, thanksgiving on November 27, 2019| 2 Comments »
Forty years later, my brother and I
go to the Jewel to buy evaporated milk
and egg nog, and part of me doubts
I will remember the way that we scoured
the produce aisle for green beans. Then again,
who could say why I remember
with incredible clarity the moments
when I was ten and we had just finished
the great turkey feast and my brother and I,
as we loved to do, asked to be excused,
but instead of leaving the dining room,
we simply lay on the floor beneath the table
with our feet up on our chairs
and conversed with each other
there across the green and white shag.
I don’t recall what we said or what we wore,
and it was no important moment, but
I remember the feel of it:
I knew we were together in this—
this moment, this family, this life,
so much so that forty years later
the memory of these ten minutes
is as real to me as the scent of the pumpkin pie
my sister-in-law baked tonight.
How is it that such a short snippet of time
defines us? How it comes to be
the moment we return to again and again
to remind ourselves who we are,
who we love, and why we are here—
those moments, stolen, and still
they give us back ourselves. Even now
in the produce aisle of Jewel, I can feel it—
the carpet against my cheek, can smell
the cranberry salad, can hear my grandfather
and grandmother laughing over our heads,
my brother’s eyes widening, mischievous, so alive.