Giving Thanks
Christmas is over, Hanukkah is running down to the end, Kwanzaa is about to start. For many people, tomorrow is a rush to exchange gifts or shop sales to find what they did not get. In this week between this year and the next, when we start to worry about the rest of our lives, it’s a good idea to think about things we have to be thankful for. Particularly if we think our lives don’t have that many things to be happy about.
Thanks
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is”
–William Stanley Merwin, (1927- ), American poet, winner of both Pulitzer and Tanner prizes.
The author of anti-war poetry in the 1960s, he now focuses on Buddhist and
ecological themes from his home in Hawaii.
This poem was published in Anne Lamott’s book, Traveling Mercies.
Quinn McDonald has a website, QuinnCreative.
