A Tidings of Magpies

Homecoming by Blas Falconer Rain against the roof sounds like a slow tire over gravel, as if a friend has come. The train rumbles through the dark, and my body, tuned to hear you cry before you cry, stirs. The lamp floats in the window, the only window lit at this late hour on the empty street. Your hands unfurl as you fall asleep. Small Clock of Needs, Law that I Abide, the leaves gloss and shine. Like this we rock and sink into the long night of our rocking.

(We saw a flock of birds looking very similiar to this--wild turkeys--after dinner at Grandma PatPat's) Turkeys by Mary Mackey One November a week before Thanksgiving the Ohio river froze and my great uncles put on their coats and drove the turkeys across the ice to Rosiclare where they sold them for enough to buy my grandmother a Christmas doll with blue china eyes I like to think of the sound of two hundred turkey feet running across to Illinois on their way to the platter the scrape of their nails and my great uncles in their homespun leggings calling out gee and haw and git to them as if they were mules I like to think of the Ohio at that moment the clear cold sky the green river sleeping under the ice before the land got stripped and the farm got sold and the water turned the color of whiskey and all the uncles lay down and never got up again please note: photo by Mark Hamilton

If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice. --Meister Eckhart

by Ursula Le Guin The holy land is everywhere. —Black Elk Watch where the branches of the willows bend See where the waters of the rivers tend Graves in the rock, cradles in the sand Every land is the holy land. Here was the battle to the bitter end Here's where the enemy killed the friend Blood on the rock, tears on the sand Every land is the holy land. Willow by the water bending in the wind Bent till it's broken and it cannot stand Listen to the word the messengers send Life from the living rock, death in the sand Every land is the holy land. please note: my own photo of the beautiful Ohio near Coney Island

Genius by George Bilgere It was nice being a genius worth nearly half-a-million dollars for the two or three minutes it took me to walk back to my house from the mailbox with the letter from the Foundation trembling in my hand. Frankly, for the first minute I was somewhat surprised at being a genius. I'd only published a few small things at that point. I didn't even have a book. I was just a part-time lecturer at a small mid-western college. But early into the second minute I had fully embraced the fact of my genius. I mean, these people know what they're doing, right? Who am I to tell the Foundation its business? And I was already practicing the kind of modest, Hey, it's no big deal tone of voice I'd be using on the phone for the rest of the day as I called all my friends, and especially my enemies, to treat them to the good news. But when I opened the letter and saw it was merely a request for me to re...

"There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American."     --O Henry I love Thanksgiving. Full disclosure, I love the fall with the change in colors, the chill, and the slowdown to the quiet of winter. I love the annual dog show on television in the morning and the Macy's Parade which jabbers in the background while I read and reread recipes and mince, chop, and slice. I get tired of the kitchen that day, but I enjoy the cooking. It is the day that White Christmas may be dusted off, but I don't want to hear any Christmas music or movies before the day after Thanksgiving. It should be autumn music. A little Yo-Yo Ma, perhaps. Autumn should get it's time and we should take a moment to be grateful before the headlong rush into Commercialmas. IMHO. This year Hubby's working 12hrs, I'm off, HoneyHaired will come home and MissNewOrleans will be in New Orleans. HoneyHaired and I wi...