Thanksgiving Day Poem by Felix Bongjoh

ThanksGiving Day
Today is Thanksgiving Day,
When freebies-laden jokes
Fly over a well-deserved turkey
Simmering by the kichen's tight-hearted bar,
Shimmering in a star,
A host's welcoming remark.
Giving twilight-painted faces sea surfaces on a bright summer
Day of winter - when hands
Are no longer cold.
And shawls warm up only babies,

Others already burning
With giving from the heart nestled
In the sun-lit crib
Of tomorrow's bright weather.
Except for the creature
Hiding in the ship's forecastle
With only a little shadow
Of its estranged mirth
Protruding through a distant gun port.

Behold snow-lit finches still guarding the skies,
While friendlier wrens draw closer to draw nectar
From surrounding homes. Children talking
To them without moving their lips.
Too busy chewing the tasty flesh of life now flying
In turkey mood. The thanks, that bird
In its isolated nest
Seeking self in an outside self - in the spaceless thrift
Of quietly grabbing honey-glazed plates
Beaming with the taste of color sprayed in lumps of food.
When sun-filled hands
Take no folds, stretch themselves out, flatten their bowl forms
Into saucers, from which gratitude
Spills out in rain showers.

Distant albatross,
Though you cannot be with us today,
As we share the warmth
You'll bring with a not-to-so-distant summer,
I give you this calendula
Which no gold can buy, which no words may implore
To offer a simple diamond of thanks.