November is also Thanksgiving.......

(Illuminated paper sculpture by Catherine Nash)

I have failed, in the course of pursuing my threads and poetics about November, to add that November is also the month of Thanksgiving, at least, in the United States it is. The end of November. And that makes sense to me ~ how can we talk about the closing of the year, going "into the dark", and honoring our ancestral strands ~ without, finally, arriving at GRATITUDE? For all that has been and been given, the gift of life not the least, the tapestry we each are woven into, and weavers as well?

Perhaps Gratitude is the soil, the enzyme, the only appropriate medium to plant any seed in.


PERSEPHONE'S FEAST DAY

When all the names are gone
when there is nothing left
for memory to feed upon
November hides
an unborn rhythm
of bells.

Perhaps all the wastes
of love and time
ferment their healing, here
in these nigrado depths,
becoming at last albedo,
the medicine.

There is no valor today in rooting
among decomposing fragments
of so many lives ~

I offer now bread, red fruit, red wine.
To life. Come to the table, all.
Here is a rich conversation
harvested from the last
living garden.

A dappled pear, an apple, a pomegranate.
A butterfly in it's chrysalis, winged, moist,
the slow rebirth of color
deep in the depths of this dream.

The weathervanes will turn again.
The wheat has new life in it yet.
The blessing will still be given.



Lauren Raine, 2005