Thanks-giving Blessings. Three Poems Today.
To read at the Thanksgiving table. Ask the children to read.
Or perhaps the eldest & the youngest & those in between.

1. THANKS-GIVING
For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

We give thanks with a poem or two
And ask the children at the Thanksgiving tables
to recite these poems to those gathered together.

THANKS-GIVING –
In & for Everything We Give Thanks
For all that God in mercy sends –
For health and children, home and friends;
For comfort in the time of need,
For every kindly word and deed,
For happy talks and holy thoughts;
For guidance in our daily walk –
In everything give thanks!
For beauty in this world of ours,
For verdant grass and lovely flowers,
For song of birds, for horn of bees,
For the refreshing summer breeze,
For hill and plain, for streams and wood,
For the great ocean’s mighty flood –
In everything give thanks!
For the sweet sleep which comes with night,
For the returning morning’s light,
For the bright sun that shines on high,
For the stars glittering in the sky –
For these and everything we see,
O Lord our hearts we lift to thee;
In everything we give thanks! (unknown)

WHEN GIVING IS ALL WE HAVE
by Alberto Ríos (1952–) – poet laureate of Arizona.

One river gives
Its journey to the next.

We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made

Something greater from the difference.

Sending greetings to everyone on this day of Thanks-giving.
And love, too. Risa