Thanksgiving Day

gratitudeIn Canada, it was a few weeks ago. However, I’m a big one for “gratitude” in life (and turkey – especially the leftovers). So, I celebrate both Thanksgivings, American and Canadian. Never enough gratitute and “thanks” in a life. It is a disposition I’ve tried to cultivate – like my mother used to always say, however trite, “count your blessings”.

Here is a poem I wrote years ago and share on Thanksgivings. Hope you enjoy it. If so, you can find more poems on my poetry site. Also, in my book, “Electric Chair for the Sun”. Also this presentation I made to honor that great YOU.

Get all the teaching resources and links you’ll need for teaching about Thanksgiving on EFL Classroom 2.0

THANKSGIVING DAY

 

 

 

I remember well

those bright dead days of autumn,

how my brother, the great white hunter

crushed the wee head of the partridge

he had winged.

Crushed it slow and rythmically

with the heel of his heavy boot.

How the farmer, ‘cross the road

filled the burlap sack

with sure and steady hand.

Filled it with a litter of pups

and flung it into the

cold clear water of the crick.

I remember

how my grandpa, at the dinner table

sucked and gummed his turkey

with intense joy and abandon.

The juices edging out the sides

of his eager, hungering mouth.

How my young friends and I

squatted over the chilled stiff fly

and with the delicate hands

of surgeons or lovers to be,

slowly one by one

pulled each leg out from under

its soft blue body.

I remember well those cool receding days of autumn.

I remember so I give my thanks.

My thanks not a sacrifice to a glaring Moloch

but only,

thanks that I am a man

and not anything else.

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ddeubel

Teacher trainer, technology specialist, educational thinker...creator of EFL Classroom 2.0, a social networking site for thousands of EFL / ESL teachers and students around the world.

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