Poetry and Thanksgiving Pie . . . Mmm. Pie.
November 21st, 2007 by Eisha and Jules
In case you missed this on Sunday, where we first mentioned it, the Poetry Foundation feature Eisha and I wrote has been posted. To read it, go here and click on “Lunchbox Poems.” We got a huge kick out of writing for the Poetry Foundation, and we hope you enjoy reading it, if you’re so inclined to do so.
I’m posting that particular lunchbox image just for Eisha, who I’m pretty sure was a Monkees fan as a wee one.
Eisha and I want to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving. I posted these words last year, but I’m sorry, they’re the most kickin’, most supreme thanksgiving words there could ever be. Maybe I’ll just post them every year, for that reason. These are the words of Thoreau, writing to H.G.O. Blake, once a Unitarian minister, in December of 1856:
“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite — only a sense of existence. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.
If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance, like flowers and sweet-scented herbs — is more elastic, starry, and immortal — that is your success.”
Now go and eat — like Harold — nine kinds of pie that you like best.
Nine kinds of pie – now that WOULD be something!
Love, love, love that quote!
Happy Thanksgiving, J and E. I love that quote too! Eisha, my friends and I stalked the Monkees while they were on the beach in Hawaii. I’ve got some photos in my mom’s attic.
Thanks for that lovely slice of wisdom. I’m making a pie right now. Can I eat nine pieces of it, instead of nine kinds?
Happy Thanksgiving, Jules and Eisha. I’m grateful to know you.
Thanks, all! I’m thankful for this blog, for Jules, and for the chance to get to know all of you.
Especially you, Jama, since you actually photographed the Monkees in person. “Fan as a wee one”? More like obsessed… in middle school/early high school. They were my boy band. Which is really sad, since they were old enough to be my collective dad. I can’t believe I’m admitting this.
I kind of covet that lunch box.
eisha, check these out. the fun is never-ending:
I am printing out that Thoreau quote and bringing it to the table…
Thankful for you guys who really don’t feel like strangers…
Happy Thanksgiving.
I’m a huge Thoreau devotee, but have missed this somehow. I’m making a hand-lettered menu for my dinner today–this quote will be on it. I’m grateful for your blog, too. It’s my “morning newspaper!”
Candice/Ellsworth’s Journal
Happy Thanksgiving, y’all. I loved the Monkees. I was Peter fan. Also Ringo, even though he was not a Monkee. I know. No one else I’ve ever met has been a Ringo fan. It’s all Paul this, John that. Sigh.
I wanted to stop and wish you a happy Thankgiving, guys. It’s so true that it is really something just to be here in this world.
Today, I ate blueberry pie and pumpkin pie. That’s only two kinds. The day, of course, is not over, and I’ve heard a rumor that a piece of cherry pie remains in my fridge….
[…] loved reading the Thanksgiving quote at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, and it got me thinking about the indefinite things for which I am thankful. Success in the writing […]