THANKSGIVING 2019

by Anita S. Pulier

Pay attention
to this table
to this gathering
to the fall sky
the people who are here
and the people who are not.

Accept the truth.
Pilgrims did not come for religious freedom
but to insist on the practice of a punitive religion.
Indians not lost to gunfire or smallpox
were vigilant warriors, tribe pitted against tribe.

All this imperfection has
evolved into our holiday
celebrated by feasting,
reworking history,
telling apocryphal tales
as though history can be recast.

But please,
through the din and chatter,
find a moment,
pay attention, and
notice this rare opportunity

to be grateful,
to raise a glass,
with joy and hope,
that against all odds
we can yet become

that Nation,
that one Indivisible Nation,
of decent, fair minded celebrants—
and for that possibilty
we can be truly thankful.

After retiring from her law practice, Anita S. Pulier served as a U. S. representative for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom at the United Nations. Her chapbooks Perfect Diet, The Lovely Mundane, and Sounds Of Morning, as well as her book The Butchers Diamond were published by Finishing Line Press. Anita’s poems have appeared both online and in print in many journals and several anthologies. Recently she has been the featured poet on The Writers Almanac.

THE COMING OF COLUMBUS

by John Z. Guzlowski

"The arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas marked the meeting of previously separate biological worlds." --"The Columbian Exchange" by J.R. McNeil, Learn NC (Painting: "Landing of Columbus" by John Vanderlyn, commissioned 1836/1837; placed 1847. Capitol Rotunda, Washington, D.C.)

Everywhere
trees paused
their slow growth
upward and outward
and leaves stopped
unfolding into
the waiting air

In the tallest branches
birds leaned
their crooked beaks
into the wind
and hushed

somewhere a boy stayed
his axe above the log
he was splitting

and waited
for the smallpox
to settle on his face

like a shaman’s
soft and loving
whisper

John Guzlowski’s writing has appeared in The Ontario Review, Atlanta Review, and Exquisite Corpse.  His poems about his parents’ experiences in Nazi concentration camps appear in his book Lightning and Ashes.