A short break from the cooking frenzy in my kitchen to complain and give thanks.
My complaint is with food manufacturers. Every year more food items seem to be downsized. What was 16 oz. is now 14 oz. Besides feeling irritated at having to pay more for less, I’m wondering what’s going to happen to all the old recipes. Do the makers of Pepperidge Farm Herb Seasoned Stuffing even realize that they’re messing with “edible archeology”? (Edible archeology is what novelist J.L. Carr calls meals made from recipes handed down generation to generation.)
Moving on to gratitude, a poem:
Thanks
by W.S. Merwin
Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
