Thanksgiving essay/poem

 The One Thing That Can Save America

                                    -after John Ashberry

Is anything central? One thing that binds us all together? The portable bridge each of us carries anytime a river needs crossed? What connects? Admittedly I’m a bit of a Thanksgiving sentimentalist. Once I saw Christmas fully exfoliated as the gaudy fakery it now is (hyper-commercialized, exploitative, phony, anxiety-inducing, expensive, loud, grating, infuriating, demoralizing, exhausting, etc.) I began to gravitate toward making Thanksgiving the centerpiece of my end of year celebrations. Loyal old Thanksgiving— simple and pure and unvarnished. It’s just a big ass meal and everyone you love and care about is invited and there’s drinks and revelry and movies and football and getting caught up with siblings and uncles you might see only once or twice a year. You can dress up or not. Fancy shoes, sexy boots. Flip flops.  Bring a pie or a bottle of $12 wine. Bring nothing but yourself. Stay as long as you like. Pass out on the couch. Reconnect, recharge, put aside tiresome facades. Be yourself. We’ve all come home again. That’s what matters. And the older I get the more important such banal sentiments seem. You realize that banality is like cliches— the first time anyone ever said “six of one, half dozen the other” an audience swooned. It’s only banal because we can't see the timelessness behind the repetition, miss messages hidden in the lines of our own palms. Oh, to recreate the conditions under which a man first said, “love conquers all”. The first time someone ever said "cool" when something cool happened. Fundamental truths lost to the vagaries of language. I'm not so quick to dismiss the banal sentiments anymore. They don't embarrass me anymore. I love Thanksgiving. Everyone is in a good mood. Genuinely curious about people rarely seen. Get caught up. What grade are you in? Are you playing baseball again? Who's this new guy you're dating now? Gather enough material to add to the little stories you have been writing about them in your mind. By now, most families know to put politics aside along with all the other old, unsolvable dramas. Politics is just ugly and crude anymore. Mean spirited, mostly.  Bizarrely identitarian. Can you imagine?  Making something as crass, craven and amoral as a political party a major pillar of your edifice of self? I’m a conservative! I’m a progressive! I'm an independent centrist! Once you get to that point, anything goes. Bullies and sociopaths high fiving. Unleash the hounds! The enemy is within! This is Judeo-Christian! It's like certain segments of the country decided to believe that Mickey Mouse is real and anyone who hates Disneyland is guilty of treason and ought to be shot. An epidemic of crude stupidity cocooned around a glowing orb of white-hot loneliness. That’s all it is. The death of decency. A despondency arising from thinking our bridges don't reach that far. That the river is too wide. Comes out of fear, anxiety, resentments, the absence of anything else to fill those private voids, etc. Let someone else figure out the whys. It all just needs to stop. Cue Thanksgiving. For one day at least, we gather in fellowship, celebrating a narrow, shared history, balancing reverence for the past with a yearning glance toward the future. The elders and the babies. The know-it-all kids. The Boomers checking their stock portfolios. The middle-aged Xers fairly dripping with a cold clammy irony. Sometimes, in the midst of the conversational din, the dogs woofing and begging, the fire blazing, cousins sealing bonds in the basement, the middle school kids laughing at the kid table in the other room, it suddenly dawns on you— this is my family, from whence I came. And it hits hard. Don’t laugh. It really does. The origin story of every inside joke ever told. You look around the table knowing not everyone will always be there. That the future hustles in new faces to replace the ones that fade. That it isn’t guaranteed it will ever happen again, even for you. Someday it all ends. I'm sorry, I meant that to be private. My own snapped off perceptions braided together as they come, and then go. 

As I get older my perspective has become less parochial.  Thanksgiving isn’t just about my particular family. The implications are far broader. This is an implicitly shared feast, everywhere— rural, urban, suburban, in homes up and down the streets of every neighborhood, in every apartment block, in every farmhouse from sea to shining sea. It occurred to me that Thanksgiving isn’t just a traditional family gathering but a shared national experience. Everyone participates. Come to think of it, Thanksgiving might just be the most authentically American holiday of them all. The truest, most honest expression of what we once thought we could be. Without the gaudy overcompensation of fireworks and flags and slobbering over the founding fathers. Nothing overtly nationalistic. No pledges or vows. A completely voluntary allegiance. It’s the one day when I feel most connected to everyone else within the arbitrary borders of this land. Isn’t that what we mean by “patriotism"? And not "patriotic" in the jingoistic sense. Not patria or pater, hinting at a hierarchical fatherland, blood and soil, stern old dad sitting silently in the corner judging us all. (Some nations, of course, lean more femme— Russians and their nurturing Motherland. We Americans have always disrespected our parents, though. We call it “homeland”. Which sounds really, really, deeply, stupid. Just enough phony abstract weight to lend an air of philosophical erudition while also sounding a little too vacuously sinister to ever be something any of us would ever get attached to. No one says "homeland" without first selling off major components of their soul.) I mean it in the Latin derived French sense of patriote— fellow countrymen. Fellow travelers. Sojourners in a vast wilderness that has never before been blazed.  All of us in it together.  No longer thinking small bands can wander off and get there on their own or worrying so much about the darkness surrounding the fire you never actually begin the journey. It takes all of us. One small gesture at a time. One side dish warmed in a thermal blanket on the 45-minute drive over. An extra bottle of fine bourbon. An old family picture album grandma found in her attic. Which of course simplifies complicated notions of what a nation is— who belongs. who’s invited. who has to leave. who can stay late. who can come back next year. who owes what and to whom.  “Our fellow countrymen”. Simple and accurate and kind of beautiful. Everyone you find sitting around the table. Mixed and blended families, divorces, annoying new girlfriends, aunts that aren't technically aunts. Sisters who are just really good friends. Mothers making you feel 12 again. Cousins getting each other drunk. Halfsies and step siblings. Gay nephews. Dickhead uncles. Favorite nieces. Potluck spreads in hospital break rooms for all the quasi-families of doctors and nurses on call. Military mess halls. It’s malleable. Our hearts like crucibles finding the melting points of the metals.

On this one day, we put aside our differences, ideological or otherwise, and come home. Poured back into our molds. Everyone knows where home is. Different for each but the same idea. Like toddlers arrayed in parallel play, spread across the room on special mats. It’s all right here. Are names central? Patton, Parks, Formani, Wallace, Gauder, Menegay, Baker, Houston, Clayton. American. Immigrant. Refugee. But also Jeff and Dave and Ricky and Tommie and Hudson and Tylor and Nana also known as Mana depending on your age cohort. G-Ma and G-Pa. Kathy and Barb. Grampa Charlie. Emma's sidepiece. Brandon and Madi and Maddie and Madison. What we call each other in the everyday sense. My friends at work. John and Meg and Sean and Greg and Jon. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. See you on Monday. And you do. There they are. Back again. Coming from quiet small houses in the country, our country, in fenced areas, in cool shady streets, in bungalows and colonials, lake side mansions and double wide mobile homes, back to this place where we intersect again and tell each other all about our crazy happy holidays. Lonely wanderers congealed into families, not quite viscid enough to prevent the series of collisions that gave rise to this nation. Sure, there have been lumps and trials. But someday our collective fate will be exemplary, like a star. A city shining on a hill. And it won’t be aspirational lies anymore. This time it will be for real. Ashberry insists the message was received long ago, but we weren't ready for it. Everyday someone is anxiously checking the mailbox. But it’s already here. Lost somewhere in the bottom of a desk drawer. It has always been here. And now we're all waiting for someone to stand up and start reading. We’re ready to listen again. To be good again. Do you know exactly what I mean? The river is wide but the waters are shallow. No bridges are needed. You just have to be willing to get a little wet. From a distance everyone appears to walk on water. See? An angel is no special thing. Anyone can do it. When you get to the other side the first person you see says thank you. And everything inside you that's empty suddenly fills with the deepest gratitude.

11/25/25

poem

 Works in Progress

Even my children are unfinished poems

Trapped in the limbo of the giant pdf file

Containing all my cherished rough drafts.

Every morning I open them up 

And read over what I have written,

Receiving them warily, uncertain if they’re ready

For the remorseless gaze of the world.

What started out as my special little babies 

Have become something almost recognizable

To everyone else as anyone else. 

So many little edits and alterations

I can’t remember ever making

I should have left them alone

When they first spilled out

Now I’m stuck searching 

For yet another flash

Of special imagery 

Only the three of us can see,

One more metaphor 

For how afraid I always was 

Of life until they came along. 

No, they’re not ready yet

The last part remains elusive

Leave me alone, Dad!

They’re always saying now 

Go away, Dad!

They’re their own poems now

Insisting they finish themselves

11/18/25

poem

 Scandal

What have you been doing?

Eavesdropping on the couple who just left

What were they talking about?

Oh you know. The usual

Like what I'm curious now

Well I can’t exactly be sure 

I couldn’t actually hear them very well

What I could tell you might not be it at all

Oh it doesn’t matter

We’ll never see them again

And even if you do who cares

Just tell me what you think it was

I’ve decided it can’t be wrong 

And so he began to narrate in a voice so low

She had to lean forward to catch whatever she could

Oh I knew it was true

The first time I ever saw you!

Blushing, she lowered her eyes

Such a scandal to have ever trusted you

11/18/25

poem

 Love is Acceptance

The older you get the less you love

 You grow quieter and calmer. 

Instead of loving you become accepting

Barely noticing the difference. 

All along life has been sanding it down 

To the smooth hilt

That fits perfectly in your hand

Love is for the young, the angry, the lonely

Love is their only salvation

But even love won’t save you from this

My own sword is so light 

Everyone assumes it’s only pretend

To parry or thrust is effortless

All this time, it was only a matter of yes

In the end, you have to say yes

11/18/25

poem

 Golden

To celebrate our 50th anniversary

We’ll go skydiving

Without parachutes

When we land

Everyone assumes we’re dead

But halfway down 

We changed our minds

I shouldn't have let you go first

We should have jumped together   

And now it’s too late

The plane banks into a cloud 

A massive quilt awaits our arrival 

Our luck we probably land 

On a hill of soft pillows

Somewhere in Ohio

Breaking our fall

So it only hurts a little 

Unlikely you say?

More likely than what’s

Happened so far

11/13/25

poem

 The Egotist

Yes I can seem uncaring

Distant 

Emotionally unavailable

But look at the bright side

I’m undiscovered country,

A clearing in a boreal forest

Where you can finally see the stars

Sure, the starlight is old and coming

From very very far way

And most of them are actually dead

By the time a single twinkle gets here

But, my god, what a scene!

All you have to do is look up

Is this enough light now?

Will you be able to find your way home?

Just kidding, the canopy is thick

And darkness surrounds us 

All you can see are flashes of wolf eyes  

Circling closer and closer.

If you don’t want to get lost

Stay right here and I’ll show you a trick—

When morning comes

The sun doesn’t rise

11/13/25

poem

 Safe Room

Here I’m safe.

Nothing can hurt me

Anymore. All you can see

Are these lines. Even the empty

Spaces are mine.

I can wait as long as I like

For the next word to arrive

I can do sentimental nostalgic

Then veer into something more cryptic. 

I can end it 

Whenever I want 

11/13/24

poem

 An Idea of Order

Some poems are very straight forward

I have an idea in mind and via a series

Of conjured thrusts I’m able to express it

Either clearly or necessarily abstruse

For example, the kind of poem

Where you almost get the sense 

I’m trying to tell you

I love you but when you read it again

The words aren’t there

Another kind of poem pries 

At the essence of love 

Pre-configuring the existence 

Of us. Do plants love 

When turned toward the sun?

Is it neurotransmitters alone?

Would it count if you could

Take it as a pill?

Would you really want to?

The deepest kind of poem 

Gets lost in its own darkness.

Down here defines "absence of light" 

Nothing you write will ever be seen 

And no one is allowed to speak.

In this place the love is so heavy

It sinks straight to the bottom. 

What rises to the surface 

Is what’s left of the poem

11/4/25

poem

 Ugly

No, the poem doesn't define me.

Don’t be silly. You don’t know me.  

Yes, everything in it is true

But only momentarily

Here’s a picture of me 

With braces and acne and a horrible mullet,

Insecurity oozing through the polaroid

Like hospice wing sweat

Look at me now

Still ugly

In the same way

Poems are beautiful

11/4/25

poem

 The Loser

Too often I’ve found myself on the short 

End of the stick. Wrong side of the 

Scoreline. Bone side of the meat.

All that losing makes you better!

Is what I told myself 

That’s how you get stronger.

I had no interest in easy wins 

So I kept picking opponents who

Got harder and harder.

Loss after loss after loss

I began to lose track of what I was even doing

I’d look out the window and see all these people celebrating—

Fireworks and horns honking and minivans on fire

Does it really feel that good?

It didn’t affect me at all

I was already looking for the next match.

Many misinterpreted this dispassionate equipoise

As the hallmark of the enlightened loser 

Who had somehow learned to transcend the dead

End of strictly outcomes-based valuations

And has found the pure realm of endless competition

In a game that no one was ever meant to win

And maybe there’s some truth there but more than that,

I found the biggest adrenaline rush came from

Giving everything I had just to keep it close,

To make them have to earn it.

For instance, put me in the middle of the ocean

And watch how long I can tread water—

I’ll show you the archetype of the noble

Martyr who eventually 

Sinks in the middle of nowhere

And is never seen again.

People respect you for that.

Walk away with your chin held high. 

Next time, they won’t underestimate you.

The problem with winning is it makes 

Losing seem especially bad.

You start to want to win all the time

And that only leads to corruption.

You start looking for rigged games,

Games you’ve learned how to manipulate—

Your arms scaly with aces

Slid up your sleeves,

Up all night reading the answers

On the back of all the trivia cards,

A pair of dice in your pocket

Weighted with your most closely guarded secret.

Every time you try to chuck it against the wall

Its number always seems to come up.

Nowadays those games are called 

Suburbia and Tenure and Made Partner

No one plays Meritocracy anymore, it’s gauche.

I’ve considered playing the one called

Professional Degree II: Economic Security

In these games, once you get in, you’re safe

You never lose

Win after win after win

Or at least that’s how it appears to those watching.

But the longer you play something shifts 

You start to figure things out

Learn to rely on old familiar patterns

Like paths in the woods behind

Your childhood home.

Every time you play, it’s always the same game 

Ending the same way— back at your house

With the wasp nests and tuna casserole 

Again for dinner, rabbits 

In the unruly hedges 

Mourning the dry September grass. 

It’s all so predictable 

Which is the moment when it stops

Being fun.

You begin to think of it as your Life

Which is why this all feels so

Deadening. 

If we were smart we’d make everything a game

But never keep score

There would be no way of knowing

If what was happening 

Would soon be ending 

Or was only just beginning.

What are the odds of that?

11/4/25