If the only prayer you ever say in your life is Thank You, it will be enough.

Master Eckhart

We Eat Out Together

by Bernadette Mayer

My heart is a fancy place
Where giant reddish-purple cauliflowers
& white ones in French & English are outside
Waiting to welcome you to a boat
Over the low black river for a big dinner
There’s alot of choice among the foods
Even a tortured lamb served in pieces
En croute on a plate so hot as a rack
Of clouds blown over the cold filthy river
We are entitled to see anytime while we
Use the tablecovers to love each other
Publicly dishing out imitative luxuries
To show off poetry’s extreme generosity
Then home in the heart of a big limousine

---

Where ever you are in this world, whatever your traditions, or beliefs, we share our humanness through gratitude. So much of poetry is tied to this quality, the ability to express thankfulness, that I don’t think poetry would exist without this innate ability.

I don’t think however it is only a human trait. If you live around animals they often express their gratitude for your touch, for your presence, for feeding them or grooming them, or petting them. Gratitude is a trait that goes beyond our species.

As I celebrate Thanksgiving today, separated because of COVID from the loved ones I would normally get together, I will say the same prayer of Gratefulness that I have said many times over the years. I am maybe more grateful than previous years as strange as it sounds. I am grateful they are healthy and capable of marshalling through these challenging times. I am grateful for their self reliance, their perseverance, their ability to make their own fun, and keep a positive attitude. I am thankful for all my blessings, – the greatest of which is their love.

I feel compelled to be original writing this blog, to have every poem on every post be new, for the first time on Fourteen Lines. But that’s not the way I read poetry. I go back to the same poems over and over. If you are needing a Thanksgiving Prayer, either to read aloud at your table or to say silently, here’s my go to favorite for Thanksgiving. I shared it on the first Thanksgiving of Fourteen Lines in 2017, and it warrants sharing again, as I plan on reading it again, and again.

Gratefulness

Thou that has given so much to me
Give me one thing more, – a grateful heart,
See how Thy beggar works on Thee by art.

Not Thankful when it pleaseth me, –
As if they blessings had spare days.
But such a heart, whose pulse may be
Thy praise.

George Herbert

---

Amuse-Bouche

by Max Ritvo

It is rare that I
have to stop eating anything
because I have run out of it.

We, in the West, eat until we want
to eat something else,
or want to stop eating altogether.

The chef of a great kitchen
uses only small plates.

He puts a small plate in front of me,
knowing I will hunger on for it
even as the next plate is being
placed in front of me.

But each plate obliterates the last
until I no longer mourn the destroyed plate,

but only mewl for the next,
my voice flat with comfort and faith.

And the chef is God,
whose faithful want only the destruction
of His prior miracles to make way
for new ones.