UNCERTAIN WEATHER

It’s Thanksgiving Day today, my first here
in five years. We still have the same food—
a juicy turkey, homemade stuffing, candied yams,
warm apple pie straight out of the oven—but it’s not the picture
you see on TV commercials. We have our own
local color here, but that comes along
with dying traditions and a changing future. I don’t see
the same faces anymore, or as often. We’ll all be splintering off
into our own directions, crossing whatever borders
we need to cross—some telling the wind to follow them,
some letting the wind take them where it will.
And as a country, who knows how long these traditions will last
when our future really reveals itself.
One day, those TV commercials won’t be characteristic
of any home—even if we’re serving up plates with turkey
and potatoes and stuffing and yams,
followed by pie and coffee.

(November 22, 2007)