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Thanksgiving

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  • Poem

    Thanksgiving Day [“Over the river and through the wood”]

    By Lydia Maria Child
    Over the river and through the wood,
        To grandfather's house we go;
             The horse knows the way
             To carry the sleigh
        Through the white and drifted snow.

    Over the river and through the wood--
        Oh, how the wind does blow!
             It stings the toes
             And...
  • Poem

    Quaker Meeting, The Sixties

    By Robin Becker
    Seeing my friend’s son in his broad-brimmed hat
    and suspenders, I think of the Quakers
    who lectured us on nonviolent social action
    every week when I was a child. In the classrooms
    we listened to those who would not take up arms,
    who objected, who...
  • Poem

    Perhaps the World Ends Here

    By Joy Harjo
    The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

    The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

    We chase chickens or...
  • Poem

    Thanksgiving

    By Edgar Albert Guest
    Gettin’ together to smile an’ rejoice,
    An’ eatin’ an’ laughin’ with folks of your choice;
    An’ kissin’ the girls an’ declarin’ that they
    Are growin’ more beautiful day after day;
    Chattin’ an’ braggin’ a bit with the men,
    Buildin’ the...
  • Poem

    To Autumn

    By John Keats
    Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
       Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
    ConspiringConspiring Working together; literally, to conspire is “to breathe together” (OED) with him how to load and bless
       With fruit the vines that round the thatch-evesthatch-eves Thatch-eaves, the edge of thatched...
  • Poem

    Signs of the Times

    By Paul Laurence Dunbar
    Air a-gittin' cool an' coolah,
       Frost a-comin' in de night,
    Hicka' nuts an' wa'nuts fallin',
       Possum keepin' out o' sight.
    Tu'key struttin' in de ba'nya'd,
       Nary step so proud ez his;
    Keep on struttin', Mistah Tu'key,
       Yo' do' know whut...
  • Poem

    The Pumpkin

    By John Greenleaf Whittier
    Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,
    The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,
    And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,
    With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,
    Like...
  • Poem

    The Gift Outright

    By Robert Frost
    The land was ours before we were the land’s.
    She was our land more than a hundred years
    Before we were her people. She was ours
    In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
    But we were England’s, still colonials,
    Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
    Possessed by what...
  • Poem

    Totem

    By Eamon Grennan
    All Souls’ over, the roast seeds eaten, I set   
    on a backporch post our sculpted pumpkin   
    under the weather, warm still for November.   
    Night and day it gapes in at us
    through the kitchen window, going soft
    in the head. Sleepwalker-slow, a black rash of...
  • Poem

    p1

    Stomackes

    By Albert Goldbarth
    1

    Yes. So we must reconnect   
    ideas of God, and the definitions of “liberty,”   
    and the psychology of our earliest models of governance, with   
    oyster peeces in barley beer & wheet,
    chopt cod & venyson seethed in a blood broth,   
    hominy pottage, also...
  • Poem

    The Thanksgivings

    Translated By Harriet Maxwell Converse
    We who are here present thank the Great Spirit that we are here
              to praise Him.
    We thank Him that He has created men and women, and ordered
              that these beings shall always be living to multiply the earth.
    We thank Him...
  • Poem

    Yam

    By Bruce Guernsey
    The potato that ate all its carrots,
    can see in the dark like a mole,

    its eyes the scars
    from centuries of shovels, tines.

    May spelled backwards
    because it hates the light,

    pawing its way, padding along,
    there in the catacombs.
  • Poem

    Grandpa Vogt’s—1959

    By Ben Vogt
    The food is on the table. Turkey tanned
    to a cowboy boot luster, potatoes mashed
    and mounded in a bowl whose lip is lined
    with blue flowers linked by grey vines faded
    from washing. Everyone’s heads have turned
    to elongate...
  • Poem

    p1

    Zebra

    By C. K. Williams
    Kids once carried tin soldiers in their pockets as charms   
    against being afraid, but how trust soldiers these days   
    not to load up, aim, blast the pants off your legs?

    I have a key-chain zebra I bought at the Thanksgiving fair....
  • Poem

    The Garden of Proserpine

    By Algernon Charles Swinburne
    Here, where the world is quiet;
             Here, where all trouble seems
    Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
             In doubtful dreams of dreams;
    I watch the green field growing
    For reaping folk and sowing,
    For harvest-time and mowing,
             A sleepy world...
  • Poem

    Family Reunion

    By Maxine Kumin
    The week in August you come home,
    adult, professional, aloof,
    we roast and carve the fatted calf
    —in our case home-grown pig, the chine
    garlicked and crisped, the applesauce
    hand-pressed. Hand-pressed the greengage wine.

    Nothing is cost-effective here.
    The...
  • Poem

    Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing

    By James Weldon Johnson
    Lift ev’ry voice and sing,   
    Till earth and heaven ring,
    Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
    Let our rejoicing rise
    High as the list’ning skies,
    Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
    Sing a song full of the faith that...
  • Poem

    [Posterity, this me is Now—]

    By Dan Beachy-Quick
    Posterity, this me is Now—
    Record this Now. Virginia, 1705
    Not always settled. I am settled
    Over history’s yellow pages, blank
    Pages, must I write my old dark
    Thoughts: Does time mask or unmask
    Mind? This sweet almond now
    In my mouth as in their mouths
    Then, sweet...
  • Poem

    A Thanksgiving to God, for his House

    By Robert Herrick
    Lord, Thou hast given me a cell
             Wherein to dwell,
    A little house, whose humble roof
             Is weather-proof:
    Under the spars of which I lie
             Both soft, and dry;
    Where Thou my chamber for to ward
             Hast set a guard...
  • Poem

    When the Frost is on the Punkin

    By James Whitcomb Riley
    When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
    And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
    And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
    And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes...
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