Poetry Friday - Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day brought a new experience for me this year, one which inspired the continuation of my thoughts about time and personal introspection.

A Thanksgiving time of year remembrance by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

"The Harvest Moon"

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes
And roofs of villages, on woodland crests
And their aerial neighborhoods of nests
Deserted, on the curtained window-panes
Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes
And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!
Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,
With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!
All things are symbols: the external shows
Of Nature have their image in the mind,
As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;
The song-birds leave us at the summer’s close,
Only the empty nests are left behind,
And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

You know that I have to get back to my dictionary obsession every once in a while, and today is the day. The etymology of thanks according to my trusty dictionary states that is derived from Old English from Old High German from the Latin word for to know. Now that is interesting. A search of to know led to thought which led to think which among its definitions is to reflect or ponder, to weigh in the mind which brings me back to my thoughts about time. As Longfellow said:

All things are symbols: The external shows
Of Nature have their image in the mind

In my book . . . I have to remember my posting on time:
There is a time for everything . .
A time to throw away, a time to tear down, and a time to weep
but conversely
there is time to keep, a time to build,
and most importantly
a time to laugh!

To prevent becoming completely maudlin, a beloved memory

Five fat turkeys are we.
We slept all night in a tree.
When the cook came around,
We couldn’t be found.
That’s why we’re here you see!

This is from memory, so I am sure that it is only a paraphrase; but it was a favorite of my once upon a time kindergarten aged son and so brings about a time to laugh!

Poetry Friday - Introspection

In honor of a weekend for introspection:

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog,
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

By Emily Dickinson
From I'm Nobody! Who are You?: Poems of Emily Dickinson for Children

"Nobody"

Nobody loves me,
Nobody cares,
Nobody picks me peaches and pears.
Nobody offers me candy and Cokes,
Nobody listens and laughs at my jokes.
Nobody helps when I get in a fight,
Nobody does all my homework at night.
Nobody misses me,
Nobody cries,
Nobody thinks I'm a wonderful guy.
So if you ask me who's my best friend, in a whiz,
I'll stand up and tell you the Nobody is.
But yesterday night I got quite a scare,
I woke up and Nobody just wasn't there.
I called out and reached out for Nobody's hand,
In the darkness where Nobody usually stands.
Then I poked through the house, in each cranny and nook,
But I found somebody each place that I looked.
I searched till I'm tired, and now with the dawn,
There's no doubt about it -
Nobody's gone!

from A Light In the Attic
by Shel Silverstein

My trusty dictionary defines introspection as self-examination, given to private thought, contemplative. A study of contemplative leads to pensive defined as deep thoughtfulness suggesting melancholy thoughtfulness. And melancholy means sadness or depression of the spirits, gloom.

In my book . . . sometimes I have to remember another of Silverstein's poems - "There's a light on in the attic. . . And I know you're on the inside . . . lookin' out."