While sharing a hotel room with my son
Nearing the end there were just two
Running through fields, slightly uphill.
An exhausted me, perhaps, arms outstretched,
As to a loving parent not just ahead?
And a final turn – me distancing you!
But spectators lacking, lost was the thrill.
Lost was the banner? The finish unreached?
No race officials? The grass yellow and dead.
Where were the silvery cloaks to keep us warm?
Would no one step forward to take us home?
Likely you already knew –
Everyone elsewhere – Papa, the wrong hill.
Others, the winners, by reporters besieged.
While for Papa the separate peace of the self misled,
And pleased that you slept soundly in the other bed.
— Poem and drawings (made at Hancock Shaker Village, Massachusetts) by William Eaton
Poem developed from a dream of 11.25.17, Charles Hotel, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Other Montaigbakhtinian Thanksgiving posts:
And, heading in another direction, there was this, from The Limericks, Part IV (No nation on Earth has an interest in seeing this band of criminals):
149
If to homo sapiens a second chance were given,
Why not with avian music be contentedly smitten?
Our deranged species might (again) not last long—
Perhaps just the length of a few lovely songs—
Accompanied by a chorus of earthly thanksgiving.
10.11.17
montaigbakhtinian 