Thanksgiving

More than these greens tossed with toasted pecans,

I want to serve you the hymn I sung into the wooden bowl

as I blended the oil and white vinegar. More than honey ice cream

beside the warm pie, I want to serve you the bliss in the apples’ flesh,

how it gathered the sun and carried its luminousness to this table.

More than the popovers, the risen ecstasy of wheat, milk and eggs,

I want to serve you the warmth that urged the transformation to bread.

Blessings, I want to serve you full choruses of hallelujah, oh so wholly

here in this moment. Oh so holy here in this world.

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As Maslow Would Suggest

Eating is touch carried to the bitter end.

—Samuel Butler

Because of the hunger, we eat, we eat to fill

whatever’s missing—work the earth to give

us what we need. And here at the table

where fruit becomes flesh we find

there is always more hunger, a place

still longing to be fed not with root, not with leaf,

not with thick sweetened cream, but with

touch from the other, with lips reaching round

not with crumbs, not with words but with

bells in them, raven song, softness of stars,

warm hands with strum in them, sleeping ghosts,

a thousand mystical flowers all blossoming now,

skin with new snow, with wolf fur, with plum sunrise,

and because of the hunger, we savor, we devour.