My 2010 Thanksgiving poem

THANKSGIVING 2010

Between the frozen meats and the aged cheese
A small man in a green cap pulled down over his ears
Looked at me with sad blue eyes and said,

“Deep in the earth there are small particles
Invisible to the eye that dream of being transformed
Into honey by the delicate flight of the bees”

Fumbling with my basket of olive bread and yogurt
I could imagine the centuries and eons it might take
For these tiny atoms to find their way to the surface

Touched by energy from the sun a thousand times over
Shape shifting across the phylogenetic tree and ooze into
The stamen of a flower – hitch itself to the ankle of a bee –

She would fly off unaware and hum and dance them
Into a golden nectar sealed in wax with thousands of
Other wax pockets encased in a comb before the queen

Later that night I woke as the snow outside continued to fall
The snowplows dragged through the streets singing out
And I wondered are there small particles in each of us

Perhaps in the muscles of the heart or swimming in the blood
Longing to pull our limbs into song or dance or to be
Consumed in the effort of shaping a masterpiece of lines

Or multi-colored brush strokes or form the syllables of a word
Spoken in reverence – spoken in love – spoken in adoration
Spoken in celebration of true friendship – “Thank you”