Today is the last Sunday before Thanksgiving, and so it seems appropriate to have a Poetry Sunday dedicated to the avian hero of the season, and poet Mary Mackey steps up to the challenge ...
Turkeys
by Mary Mackey
One November
a week before Thanksgiving
the Ohio river froze
and my great uncles
put on their coats
and drove the turkeys
across the ice
to Rosiclare
where they sold them
for enough to buy
my grandmother
a Christmas doll
with blue china eyes
I like to think
of the sound of
two hundred turkey feet
running across to Illinois
on their way to the platter
the scrape of their nails
and my great uncles
in their homespun leggings
calling out gee and haw and git
to them as if they were mules
I like to think of the Ohio
at that moment
the clear cold sky
the green river sleeping
under the ice
before the land got stripped
and the farm got sold
and the water turned
the color of whiskey
and all the uncles
lay down and never got up again
I like to think of the world
before some genius invented
turkeys with pop-up plastic
thermometers
in their breasts
idiot birds
with no wildness left in them
turkeys that couldn't run the river
to save their souls
Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and get ready for Thanksgiving!
Have a good day; more thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
4 comments:
Where would we be without turkeys with pop up plastic thermometers?
I wonder if the Ohio freezes over anymore. The Mississippi hasn't for many many years here at St. Louis.
Great poem! I really enjoyed it.
Nice poem!
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