26 November 2018: This W.S. Merwin poem arrived in my inbox on Thanksgiving Day (courtesy of the Poem-a-Day email) but I only read it closely today. And it works quite well for what has been on my mind today: a sort of mixture of anxiety about the world and for people I know and care about and a deep sense of gratitude for what I have and for the chance to keep working in/with/through the darkness. I thought about it when I met with a student who is really struggling and for whom I had no easy answers. I thought about it while Amy and I took a cold walk through campus as the sun went down and the cold winds kicked up.
This is a strange season for me every year. It gets quieter. I get quieter. And more serious. But the idea of this poem--that we keep saying "thank you"--really appeals to me. Not a bad strategy for getting through it all.
"we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is"
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