Thanksgiving for Two

by Marjorie Saiser

The adults we call our children will not be arriving
with their children in tow for Thanksgiving.
We must make our feast ourselves,

slice our half-ham, indulge, fill our plates,
potatoes and green beans
carried to our table near the window.

We are the feast, plenty of years,
arguments. I’m thinking the whole bundle of it
rolls out like a white tablecloth. We wanted

to be good company for one another.
Little did we know that first picnic
how this would go. Your hair was thick,

mine long and easy; we climbed a bluff
to look over a storybook plain. We chose
our spot as high as we could, to see

the river and the checkerboard fields.
What we didn’t see was this day, in
our pajamas if we want to,

wrinkled hands strong, wine
in juice glasses, toasting
whatever’s next,

the decades of side-by-side,
our great good luck.

 

From I Have Nothing to Say About Fire.
The Backwaters Press, 2016.

Read this and other poems by Marjorie Saiser in I Have Nothing to Say About Fire, available for purchase online.

It’s difficult to resist the social pressure that turns the holidays into an excuse for consumption and stress. Yet Marjorie Saiser brings love and acceptance to a situation that might anger or disappoint other parents: her children will not be coming home for Thanksgiving. Even in the first line, she acknowledges that they are adults with lives and children of their own, and we sense a hint of relief that she and her husband will get to “indulge” alone this year, reminiscing about “that first picnic” that led them to this day together. Saiser reminds us that when we “make our feast ourselves,” when we transform the holidays back into holy days that focus on joy and deeper connection, we see how the abundance of our “good company,” no matter who or what that might be, “rolls out like a white tablecloth” before us. So often, we’re caught in the rush of obligation that we forget to pause and give thanks for our lives as they are, in all their messiness. The author and counselor Sheryl Paul points out in her book, The Wisdom of Anxiety: “There are two rivers that pulse through the holiday season: a river of anxiety informed by the need to consume and socialize and stay loud and busy, and a river of love informed by the waters of giving and gratitude. ” Though it may not always seem the case during the holidays, we get to choose which river we step into, by making the most of every given moment and letting the current of love carry us forward.

Invitation for Writing & Reflection: Try writing about your own ideal Thanksgiving. If you had no other obligations or expectations placed on you, and if money and time were no object, what kind of day would you create for yourself (and perhaps your loved ones)? What rituals would you let go of? Allow yourself to be as specific as possible as you imagine how you might indulge yourself, and where and how you might spend this day of thanks.

ABOUT THE POET: Marjorie Saiser

Marjorie Saiser is the author of seven previous books of poetry and co-editor of two anthologies. Her books include Learning to Swim (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2019), The Woman in the Moon (Backwaters, 2018) and I Have Nothing to Say about Fire (Backwaters, 2016). Saiser’s newest book is The Track the Whales Make: New & Selected Poems from University of Nebraska Press, 2021. Her website is poetmarge.com.

POETRY SELECTION AND COMMENTARY BY JAMES CREWS

James Crews is the author of four collections of poetry: The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment. He is also the editor of two anthologies: Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and have been reprinted in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry and featured on Tracy K. Smith’s podcast, The Slowdown. James teaches at SUNY-Albany and lives with his husband in Vermont.

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