Welcome to Sunday Morning Lyricality, featuring a weekly song or poem by a Minnesota writer. Our current guest editor is Susan Thurston.
Similar to last week’s poem where gratitude is a distilled awareness of the seemingly small things that together represent the totality of what we love, what we would miss, and what we await, this week’s poem addresses how profound sense of worship can reside in a still, small moment of encountering nature. Gratitude comes to us often in the unexpected breath, the flash that connects with the universe.
Susan Thurston
Thanksgiving
Toni Easterson
A fox appeared
on the frozen pond
while I stood holding a cup of tea,
my mind thinking only
about my mother’s dishes,
put away like my children
who’ve returned to their places,
and God, who I’ve lost again
much the way I lose my car keys,
though I found them moments ago
on the back seat of my car.
The weather people are saying
flurries only and the fox,
performing so well his role of fox,
fills me with such gratitude
I bow my head.
***
Toni Easterson found a new home with Penchant, Northfield Women Poets, after moving to Northfield from Connecticut, where she regularly wrote op-eds for the Hartford Courant. Having had her poems published in many different books and collections, she has also been active at the Northfield Arts Guild, where she served on the board of directors, Northfield Land Team and Green Team. As a textile artist, she has taught many students to sew and knit.