Thanksgiving

I keep thinking about how and why and with what hands

people touch each other’s lives,

the violence of bone and blood and muscle

it takes to make a reaching.

How much of a gift it is

that any two persons’ straight lines toward doom

intersect,

become for a time

a charmed circle.

Amazing the patterns people make

by crossing each other’s paths

like black cats on this dark-night planet, amazing

to say I love you,

Hello.

O Lord

I am not worthy that you should

that anyone should

come under my roof, O Lord

but how glad.

                                       ~ Joanne McPortland