Thanksgiving: Gratitude, Memorial, and Poetry

I’m a bit conflicted by this holiday.

On the one hand, the original day of “Thanksgiving” was a celebration of a massacre, and the original pilgrims aren’t all they are sometimes cracked up to be. We cannot forget this. Teen Vogue, which has really been kicking it lately, also has this video:

But I’m also all for gratitude.

So threaded around turkey and football, I attempt to hold our past in reverent memory while finding things to be grateful for the present.

And I pray that both the memory of the past and gratitude of the present will guide us into a better future.

(Of course, memory of the past and the present collide in the Standing Rock protests. Not sure where hope for the future is in this, though.)

Some poems for today: