Another Thanksgiving repeat, from 11/26/13
Reconciliation
More logs will be thrown on the fire
without adding fuel to the flames.
Tamp down the latent gas and ire.
Try to recall the children’s names.
It was not difficult
coming here.
Some obligations
are easier to meet
than others. Paying
attention to the Mass
on TV: does that count?
Watching The Parade
from a well-cushioned couch
is not The Real Thing,
not at all the same
as craning my neck
above a crowded curb,
while the icy wind
burns my face
and invades my bones
as the brass-blare
tickles my inner ear,
and the drumbeat burrows
deep into my heart.
Repeat the anecdotes and jokes.
Hold up your end of the chatter.
No lectures on the drinks and smokes,
nor fights about What Really Matters.
I’m thankful for inclusion
among this company gathered
for a revved-up meal. Sufficiency seems
like abundance, an overflowing
cornucopia spilling out the fruits
of a half-forgotten past.
It’s good to get out for the day,
away from the forever-so-humble digs
with the old, familiar plywood panels,
the plaster crumbs, and the gaps
letting in scores of unwanted things.
The porous walls reek of unsettled sounds
from the good-looking couple on the floor above,
up and at it all night
with the shouts and the squabbling,
the rumbling and the thuds.
They’re much too young to battle this much.
“What have they got to fight about?”
complains the busybody from 3-G.
She has a late-model car and a live-in beau.
Also, curiosity. So many questions!
But I’m not really sure she knows my name.
The tight-lipped guy who lives downstairs–-
the one who thinks he can play bass guitar- -
resents it when I try to say hello.
Once he yanked the pudgy arm
of his friendly, joint-custody son
and tugged the toddler back inside.
Of all the wild wars waged against a Noun,
The War on Poverty was first, Number One.
Fighting the good fight, oppressed, broke, and down,
we fought a War on Poverty. And Poverty won.
For ever I have scaled the “Ladder
of Opportunity,” on call,
each time slipping, getting madder.
The thud, always. Always, a fall.
(Which never really surprised me at all.)
All of us love to say
we hate personal drama,
although we seek it
like a drug.
Somehow we have to make peace,
patch up the past,
tacitly come to terms
with a universe that would
just as soon turn its back
on us as smack us down
with a what’s-it-to-me shrug.
Yet here we are
in this shared world
where nutmeg smells
as good to a pauper
as it does to a CEO,
where little fingers
sketch turkeys that look
like peacocks, the colors
of their fanned-out feathers
primal and bold,
where the unexpected
sight of soft snow
upon dead leaves
can catch one’s breath,
puffing out like a ghost
in the chilly night air.
Offer help with the greasy chore;
rinse that glass dry-flecked with foam.
Don’t linger too long at the door.
Just say your good-night and go home.
Go home.
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