This thanks-giving holiday, thank you

On Thanksgiving day I’ll be feasting with friends, each bringing to the table interesting home-cooked dishes, a bottle of pinot noir and a poem.

We are to bring (in the words of a participating friend) whatever verse has meaning to us – original, old favorite, modern, ancient, whatever we may find … the fewer parameters, the better … because part of the enjoyment is to experience the reason for the choice, why each person’s verse has personal meaning.

I’ll be sharing W. S. Merwin’s “To the Happy Few.” It’s not available online without cost (unless you subscribe to The New York Review of Books ). Since copyright police would frown at posting it in full on The Longest Chapter without permission, I’ll offer here, as a replacement, another Merwin poem.

W. S. Merwin became a favorite of mine this year with The Shadow of Sirius, which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

Thank you to all who follow The Longest Chapter. I’m grateful for your reading presence and this blogging adventure. Happy Thanksgiving!

“Thanks” by W. S. Merwin

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges 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 thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions… <read more>

Noted: Updated Thanksgiving 2012, with minor edits.