Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a few hours from being only a week away. Our small clan will gather at our house--Bern and me, Mimi and Tim and Eleanor, Josh and Cathy and Morgan/Emma/Tegan, along with John our friend since the early 70's and Hanne, who is in her 90's and our friend for 30 years.

Those rare times when Bern, our children, their spouses, our granddaughters and I are together are magic to me--because they are blessings and magic as well.

I happened across a poem I wrote about Mimi and rain and home over 9 years ago. I thought I'd share it here as a pre-Thanksgiving gift.


RAINY DAY

It rained all day in Connecticut
and New York City too, my daughter told me
on the phone tonight.

What else she told me was this:
on her way from the subway to her office,
on, of all streets, 17th Street,
she saw a blur of yellow on a windowsill
at sidewalk level.

She turned back and found a parakeet
with her head under her wing,
more yellow than green,
and found a box in the trash of 17th Street
and took the bird--after a struggle--
to work with her...stopping on the way,
somewhere, I can't imagine where,
to buy a cage and some food and,
though she didn't mention it,
a water bottle, I'm sure.

She spent lots of the day on the internet--
and found Rainy was a girl
because of the color of her beak,
and put a message on Craig's List (whatever that is)
that brought her a dozen calls about missing
parakeets.

None of them, after descriptions were given,
turned out to be Rainy.
So my daughter, most likely, now has a parakeet.

I'm wondering how a dozen people in a piece
of Manhattan, could allow
their parakeets to escape on a rainy day
in April.

And even more, I'm left wondering
if a dozen people who lost birds
were looking on Craig's List to find them...
how many birds were truly lost
this rainy day?

I think of them--wet feathered, frightened,
shivering on windowsills, trash cans
and the just budding trees of the East Side,
heads under their wings,
longing for home.

(Who of us doesn't know the feeling of 'being lost',
damp wings across our face,
longing for home?)

And I'm left wondering
most of all,
if I did anything right in my life
to have a daughter who'd
spend her day trying to find 'home'

and then providing one
for a wet bird she named Rainy,
in honor of
this wet April Monday?
JGB 4/28/08

(Eventually Rainy came to live with us along with Maggie, the bird Mimi brought so Rainy would have a friend. We had them both until Rainy and then Maggie, a year later, died. We loved them greatly. They were a blessing and a gift.

Just like all the members of our small clan are. Blessings and gifts--what we celebrate on Thanksgiving....)