Christ Tastes Like Turkey

image borrowed from backtoclassics,com

Christ Tastes Like Turkey

“Give thanks to television, for this is the first time

that the young are seeing history made before before

it is censored by their elders.”--Margaret Mead.

Mid-term elections are over, 

               & Republicans scramble about freely

               gobble-gobbling crap about entitlement,

impeachment, birth certificates, & saber rattling, as

                                religious leaders, the media &

               Madison Avenue put their stamp & spin

right on the tail feathers of blessed Thanksgiving.

               We, the people,

                             are taught, or

                                    have learned that being thankful

                for even the slightest of blessings

is a healthy exercise for our troubled souls; & yet

it is a sad fact that

                too many families, pulled apart

by world events, personal soap operas, or technology

& merchandizing, immorality, dishonesty & ignorance, fail

                to grasp the significance, the brilliance of simply

                     gathering together & giving thanks, 

                     breaking bread at someone’s designated home,

serving steaming pies of humility, foregoing

                                        slices of sarcasm, baskets of bile &

                                        dishes of discord.

Days of fasting then feasting, celebrating thankfulness

were brought to our shores

by our New England forbearers, & every school child

                    knows that around 1621 the Plymouth colonists

                                       sat down with the Wampanoag Indians

                                                       & shared an autumn feast

of venison, swan, squirrel, wild boar, & perhaps

                    a wild turkey or two--there were no functional ovens

                    in  Plymouth, so several fire pits cooked the humble fare.

  There was no sugar left, so the pastries were absent.

If we were to nominate, or consecrate a Saint of Thanksgiving,

surely it would have to be the kind warrior, Squanto,

                    who knew English after being kidnapped 

                                    & sold into slavery in England, who was

                    the one who taught the colonists how

                                       to cultivate corn, & how to extract sap

 from the plentiful maple trees.

When we look to history, as certainly

we should in order to discover & honor our heritage,

                     we find that the Egyptians, Greeks, & Romans always

                     set aside days of thankfulness, in order to pay tribute

                                         to the gods after a harvest, & before them

the Jews had the Harvest Festival of Sukket  

George Washington,

John Adams, &

James Madison                  during their presidencies, also designated

                                           days of thankfulness, but it was old

Abe Lincoln in 1863 who proclaimed that

                                           in order to heal the wounds of a nation

there would be a national Thanksgiving Day held

the last Thursday in November.

Today

my lovely wife & I are alone,               as our children are all attending

                                              gatherings & meals at their in-laws.

We will stay in our pajamas until noon, read,

                                               watch the silly goings-on on television

as we hug quietly, tenderly within the silence, the peace

of understood abandonment; for it is a different scenario

                                     when the five grandchildren congregate

                                at our home, turning it into a boisterous 

                        school play yard, laced with lilting laughter,

                 indignant yelps, angry reprisals, 

& childish demands; all of which will be enjoyed as our family

gathers in our house for Christmas.

As we prepare our simple meal for two,

just a turkey breast, & the potatoes of piety, 

& the green beans & bacon of generosity,

we will still find time to be thankful

                  for each other,

                  for our burgeoning family,

                  for our dear friends,

                  for our faithful pets; keenly aware

as we clearly see the bad weather, discontent, dissent,

crime & hunger that surrounds us, we feel

that our gratitude will be just a tiny atoll of Love

on all the dark seas of salt & pain, for we understand

                  that true thankfulness,

                   like a genuine smile

             is as infectious, 

         as contagious

as ebola.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted on this Thanksgiving Day over at dVerse Poets

Would you like to hear the author read this poem of thankfulness to you?