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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The Poetry of Thanksgiving

How would Thanksgiving read as poetry?  Would it be a paean of praise for turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and pie, or the suitably rich, gourmet equivalent of another culture, chockful of sensory experiences and satiated appetites?  A ghazal celebrating yet lamenting the surfeit of fare, the absence of love?
Would it be a witty or a call and response conversation enumerating family members passed, past, sick, or present, comparing or elaborating their exploits and relationships?
Would it be a series of aphoristic poems, each gem of family wisdom brought forth and polished up with new nuances and facets, real or imagined, in the telling by elders, along with a Greek chorus of precocious offspring?
Perhaps it would be the prose poetry of sports reporting, this league and that, illustrated in living color, or perhaps by live demonstrations in the November chill.
Toasts to teams, guests, and the cooks?
Lists of accomplishments, events and gains?
Or would it be a sonnet, contrasting his version and hers, albeit placed in a singular context, which side of the family, or side of the bed, was richer, was better, was authentic and true, eyes blind to the commonality even a reader could see?
Would the facts and rhymes evolve like Fibonacci numbers, strict in pattern yet understandable to few, reading like fractals to the rest of the crew?
Perhaps an acronym, explicating as much meaning as one could squeeze out of a name?
Would it read like the curse and the charm of the a charity kitchen, open to all and One, at once both blessed and guiltily accepted, admission and foretaste of the feast to come?
How would YOU write Thanksgiving as a poem?