On giving thanks

Stepping earthwards, we are advised to thank and forgive our debtors as well. On a more intimate matter, we look up to parents and offspring, then laterally to mate and siblings -- cheerfully to friends and the milkman. Then we may gorge on far too many calories with happy feelings, forgiving indiscretions of diet -- praising the donor of fowl and pies made from ubiquitous pumpkin.

Late November was celebratory in New England back in the Seventeenth Century when our Pilgrim fathers had hauled in their first harvest and drafted our first peace agreement with the Indians -- presumably while eating something simple like corn and some sort of fruit with their sincere prayers to their loving God. May He bless the prayers we send aloft.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sonnet To A Healer

Utterly professions, she assumed command

To protect and heal; she took

The ball and ran

Every test in the doctor's book.

But first, she came to know her patient well

With methods honored down the centuries

So it bonded us two as we came to know

The search with all our venturing.

Her patient was also a physician, whose lifeblood

Had woefully hit the danger mark

Requiring transfusions and special care

But she gave me her best and understood

How illness sharply defines the dark

Give way to her gift of brightest day!