Poetry: Serious. Not That Serious - Turkey Day Edition

Poems I'm Thankful ForThe poems I've selected for POETRY: SERIOUS, NOT THAT SERIOUS Turkey Day Edition are the kind that you can read at the beginning of your Thanksgiving meal in lieu of grace, toast, or prayer, or maybe as a friendly add-on. I spend the day before Thanksgiving every year searching for a poem to read to guests before I lose myself in Mom's stuffing and homemade cranberry sauce. Here are the requirements for a Good Thanksgiving Poem:

1. Relatively simple and direct—no one wants to decode a sentence or Google a word while deciding whether to pounce on the gravy boat or sweet potato casserole first.
2. Short—like that saying “The higher the heels, the closer to God,” but the opposite.
3. Acknowledges pain but focuses on gratitude anyway—for relevance's sake.

Keeping these guidelines in mind, I've chosen three poems which I hope you'll consider reading to your friends and family right before you give thanks and indulge in the true meaning of the holiday—unabashed overeating. 1. When you want to KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid), and send some reviving wishes to the ones you love, extending far beyond the holiday table:RiceBy Mary OliverIt grew in the black mud.It grew under the tiger's orange paws.Its stems thicker than candles, and as straight.Its leaves like the feathers of egrets, but green.The grains cresting, wanting to burst.Oh, blood of the tiger.I don't want you to just sit at the table.I don't want you just to eat, and be content.I want you to walk into the fieldsWhere the water is shining, and the rice has risen.I want you to stand there, far from the white tablecloth.I want you to fill your hands with mud, like a blessing.2. When it's been a rough year, but you're still thankful. Take that, misfortune!ThanksBy W.S. MerwinListenwith the night falling we are saying thank youwe are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railingswe are running out of the glass roomswith our mouths full of food to look at the skyand say thank youwe are standing by the water thanking itsmiling by the windows looking outin our directionsback from a series of hospitals back from a muggingafter funerals we are saying thank youafter the news of the deadwhether or not we knew them we are saying thank youover telephones we are saying thank youin doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevatorsremembering wars and the police at the doorand the beatings on stairs we are saying thank youin the banks we are saying thank youin the faces of the officials and the richand of all who will never changewe go on saying thank you thank youwith the animals dying around usour lost feelings we are saying thank youwith the forests falling faster than the minutesof our lives we are saying thank youwith the words going out like cells of a brainwith the cities growing over uswe are saying thank you faster and fasterwith nobody listening we are saying thank youwe are saying thank you and wavingdark though it is3. For the more avant-garde Thanksgiving crowd:The Power Tableby Jean ValentineYou, lying across the wide bed, vertical,I, horizontal,you, I, in a green field two green pathsflowered with xxxx's and xxxx'syou, I, lined insidewith pre-historic quarrelsold black cutsin a wooden kitchen tablethe table where you sit down with your older brothersthe table where things get settled once & for allthe cow's hip shaved down to the brandher body divided into zonesyes I am standing in the doorwayyes my softness & my hardness are filledwith a secret light,but I want world-lightand this-world company.