Dear Bleaders,
Happy Thanksgiving! I'm sorry I've missed a few weeks posts. I'd explain how sometimes even just a once a week blog can be too challenging to manage without some breaks, but I figure most of you have blogs of your own and know about such things as well as I. In my case, and perhaps many other cases, maybe even the whole crate, I have things to say, I just find myself not saying them. The mind, I am reminded, will go on forever, but the body sometimes goes and lies down.
Since it is the day before Thanksgiving I thought I'd share a poem I wrote about the day after Thanksgiving. I posted it last year with some commentary, so I'll just give the poem here. It is a somewhat light piece, having been commissioned by the New York Times.
Thanksgiving was my birthday this year
and I find two holidays in one is not
efficient. In fact, barely anything gets
done; neither the bird nor the passage
of the year is digested. Luckily, Black
Friday offers new pleasures while remaining
a stolen day; a day after. There is shopping,
the streets, or the hilarious malls, but I will
stay home with the leftovers and use
the time to rethink, turkey leg in hand like
a king. Pumpkin pie, solid soup of
pummeled end-of-summer. Chestnuts and
sausage chunks from stuffing plucked
regally, like an ape leisurely denuding
a blueberry bush of its fruit. Maybe I mean
Cleopatra’s teeth accepting red grapes from
a solicitous lunk of nubility. Same image.
The hand feeds, the mouth gets fed. You
too? Mother ate turkey in the maternity?
Imagine, you not-born in late Novembers,
if every few years a bird adjoined your
candles. Think, too, who comes to eat
that bird. Those whose faces look like
yours; those nearly-yous and knew you
whens; those have your same ill eases.
How’s the sciatica? Fine, how’s yours?
The world is old. Cleopatra might
have liked Black Friday. It’s as engaging
as a barge with a fast gold sofa. She also
might have liked aging. At least preferred
it to the asp. Yellow leaf patterned
sunlight dazzles the wall with its dapple.
It’s all happening now, as I write. This is
journalism. No part of the memoir
is untrue. Though I probably will
go to the mall, if everyone else goes.
----
I hope you have a wonderful holiday this year. I hope you enjoy seeing the family or avoiding doing so. Either, if done properly, will entail a measure of guilt -- but offset the bitter with some pie and get through it. There will likely be at least three moments of joy -- keep your eyes open for them and make a note for later redemption. May I also suggest reading or rereading the lovely post by Laura Orem (it is here on this site, just a few posts down, but I figured I'd link anyway) which includes a sweet killer of a poem by Eleanor Lerman, called "Starfish." It gave me pause, and if you are anything like me, you could use some.
Well that's about it, but will you forgive the honey if I tell you I am thankful for you? I am. Thank you.
Eat well and if they drive you insane, just say "My poet told me not to listen to you" and then keep eating.
Love,
Jennifer
ps the turkey above is a real one, mounted on a board and for sale at the flea market under the Bridge on weekends in Brooklyn. Gruesome aint it? wink. Also wrote a new post at Dear Fonzie.
