Happy Thanksgiving!

 Whether you are one or two at a table, or crowded in with friends and family, the Jungle Reds wish you a day of connection, reflection, and gratitude. Muskogee writer Joy Harjo, the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States, shares her poem about the worlds and lives we make around those tables. We hope you enjoy it.

A Poem for the New Year

New Year's Resolution

by Philip Appleman

Well, I did it again, bringing in
that infant Purity across the land,
welcoming Innocence with gin
in New York, waiting up
to help Chicago,
Denver, L.A., Fairbanks, Hon-
olulu--and now
the high school bands are alienating Dallas,
and girls in gold and tangerine
have lost all touch with Pasadena,
and young men with muscles and missing teeth
are dreaming of personal fouls,
and it's all beginning again, just like
those other Januaries in
instant reply.


But I've had enough
of turning to look back, the old
post-morteming of defeat:
people I loved but didn't touch,
friends I haven't seen for years,
strangers who smiled but didn't speak--failures,
failures. No,
I refuse to leave it at that, because
somewhere, off camera,
January is coming like Venus
up from the murk of December, re-
virginized, as innocent
of loss as any dawn. Resolved: this year
I'm going to break my losing streak,
I'm going to stay alert, reach out,
speak when not spoken to,
read the minds of people in the streets.
I'm going to practice every day,
stay in training, and be moderate
in all things.
All things but love. 

     -from New and Selected Poems, 1956-1996

Happy New Year to all our friends and readers!

Hank, Hallie, Rhys, Debs, Lucy, Jenn and Julia  

Thanksgiving for Two; a poem by Marjorie Saiser

Some of us are sitting down with our family members today, and some Reds and readers are having a much smaller celebration. Whether your Thanksgiving is for two or twenty, we wish you all the blessings of the season.

 

Thanksgiving for Two
by Marjorie Saiser

The adults we call our children will not be arriving

with their children in tow for Thanksgiving.

We must make our feast ourselves,

slice our half-ham, indulge, fill our plates,

potatoes and green beans

carried to our table near the window.

We are the feast, plenty of years,

arguments. I’m thinking the whole bundle of it

rolls out like a white tablecloth. We wanted

to be good company for one another.

Little did we know that first picnic

how this would go. Your hair was thick,

mine long and easy; we climbed a bluff

to look over a storybook plain. We chose

our spot as high as we could, to see

the river and the checkerboard fields.

What we didn’t see was this day, in

our pajamas if we want to,

wrinkled hands strong, wine

in juice glasses, toasting

whatever’s next,

the decades of side-by-side,

our great good luck.

 

Poem copyright ©2014 by Marjorie Saiser

Merry Christmas!

From all of us at Jungle Red Writers, to all our friends, family, and readers, we wish you a holiday season filled with great joys and quiet moments both.

December

A little girl is singing for the faithful to come ye
Joyful and triumphant, a song she loves,
And also the partridge in a pear tree
And the golden rings and the turtle doves.
In the dark streets, red lights and green and blue
Where the faithful live, some joyful, some troubled,
Enduring the cold and also the flu,
Taking the garbage out and keeping the sidewalk shoveled.
Not much triumph going on here—and yet
There is much we do not understand.
And my hopes and fears are met
In this small singer holding onto my hand.
Onward we go, faithfully, into the dark
And are there angels singing overhead? Hark.

- Gary Johnson