We read this poem every year at our church
during our Thanksgiving service.
I love it because it expresses gratitude
in concrete terms.
A Gardener's Thanksgiving
By Max Coots
Let us give thanks for a bounty of people.
For children who are our second planting, and though they
grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may
they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where
their roots are.
Let us give thanks;
For generous friends...with hearts...and smiles as bright
as their blossoms;
For feisty friends, as tart as apples;
For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers,
keep reminding us that we've had them;
For crotchety friends, sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;
For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and
as elegant as a row of corn, and the others, as plain as
potatoes and so good for you;
For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and
as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes;
And serious friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle
as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as
dill, as endless as zucchini and who, like parsnips, can be
counted on to see you through the winter;
For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time,
and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;
For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold
us, despite our blights, wilts and witherings;
And finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past
that have been harvested, but who fed us in their times that
we might have life thereafter.
For all these we give thanks.
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