A Thanksgiving Poem

This poem was handed to me a church member on her way out the doors this Sunday past.

THANKSGIVING OCTOBER 2008

Thank You for Your healing touch

Thank You for Your mercy that I need so much

Thank You that You love me so

Thank You that You'll never let me go

Thank You that You're always near

Thank You that my prayer You'll hear

Thank You that I'm Yours today

forever, now, and for always

Thank You for the joy You bring

Thank You for the presence of my King

Thank You for true freedom's song

Thank You Father, that to You I belong

Thank you for the power that you bring

to live for You through everything

Thank You even for sorrow and pain

For it is through these things I truly gain

A deeper understanding, and a close walk with You

My God, my Lord, my very life

Thank You for just being You

And thank You Lord for one final thing

The privilege and pleasure of bringing glory to my King

The One all-deserving and worthy of my praise

Who up out of the pit of sin my life You did raise

But thank You most of all for Jesus, who gave and still gives

My light and my salvation, and Who in my heart does live

Does live to forgive and pardon, and set this captive free

From every form of bondage and doubt every pain and misery

Who heals the heart that's broken, speaks peace in the troubling storm

Who promises to never leave his child helpless and forlorn

And best of all the promises, when I call upon Your name

The gates of Heaven open, and life is never the same

For Your presence transcends everything of this world's estate

And I await and relish the promises of one day walking through the gates

To stand before and meet again, the One Who is the Gate

To see my blessed saviour and Friend, then forever face to face

Death, be not proud

Death, be not proud (Holy Sonnet 10)

by John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Inspiration in poetry for reading books

In one of the English classes I teach we have been working through a unit on poetry. Yesterday we looked at a poem by Pablo Neruda.

Ode to My Socks

Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
as if they were two cases
knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin,
Violent socks,
my feet were two fish made of wool,
two long sharks
sea blue, shot through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet were honored in this way
by these heavenly socks.
They were so handsome for the first time
my feet seemed to me unacceptable
like two decrepit firemen,
firemen unworthy of that woven fire,
of those glowing socks.


Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men collect
sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them
in a golden cage and each day give them
birdseed and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers in the jungle
who hand over the very rare green deer
to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stretched out my feet and pulled on
the magnificent socks and then my shoes.


The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.

Pablo Neruda

One section that jumped out at me as we analyzed it in class was:

Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men collect
sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them
in a golden cage and each day give them
birdseed and pieces of pink melon.

 Neruda refuses to save the socks he has been given for a later time. He realizes the beauty in the socks is largely found in the wearing of them. What struck me was his comparison of stashing the socks to that of learned men and their books. This analogy reminded me of an essential truth in reading. The beauty of a book is not in the owning of it, but in the reading and interacting with it. It was a strange time and place to find inspiration for reading books, but it renewed my desire to continue to be a life-long reader and for that I am grateful.