I’ve decided to count down to Thinksgiving, and take a moment each day to think about things I’m thankful for.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Number Two:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 Poetry.<\/p>\n There once was a poem for Thanksgiving Is there anything better than a sappy, ignorant scrap of doggerel to lift our spirits?\u00a0 Sure there is, but I can’t think of it at the moment.\u00a0 A good poem, though, unlike the above, can stop us in our tracks.\u00a0 Poets at their best make us hear the sounds of the babbling brook\u00a0rushing over the rocks\u00a0past us, make us smell the decay of the old building as we see the foundations crumbling over the course of a lifetime, make us believe not only that ravens can talk but that, there but for the grace, it is ourselves they would address.\u00a0\u00a0 The poet’s job is not just to show you, not merely to tell you, but to bring you there, willy nilly, whether you really wanted to go or not.\u00a0<\/p>\n I have seen the frost-bitten skies of the Yukon through the words of Robert Service.\u00a0 I have heard the siren call of the East in the temple bells of Mandalay, and that of the shores of Loch Katrine in the songs of Walter Scott.\u00a0\u00a0I have been a rooster over at Free Range Poetry<\/a>, once in a while, once in a while.\u00a0<\/p>\n I have seen the best of minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, and for this, I am thankful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve decided to count down to Thinksgiving, and take a moment each day to think about things I’m thankful for. Number Two: Poetry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[32],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2075"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2098,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075\/revisions\/2098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAbout a turkey, absolved and forgiving.
\nDespite all his pluck
\nThat bird’s outta luck,
\nAnd in death he’ll be stuffed for the living!<\/p>\n