This autumn, I seem to have noticed the change after daylight savings time more than normal. It just seems darker most nights as I leave work.
Maybe it’s simply the time of year. For teachers and everyone who works in education, Thanksgiving always arrives at that part of the semester where exhaustion is setting in (has already set in?), but the end is still a ways away. It’s the short breath before the sharp plunge back in for December and all its busyness. I often hope to hibernate.
But that’s probably not the right impulse. After all, for most people, even most academics, these days off from work are really no pause at all as gatherings and cooking and all sorts of lovely things take up the week.
No, whatever my week holds, I want to think well about how to be thankful in this time focused on that virtue. To be attentive to the lights as I drive home, not only to the darkness. Because there are so many, many lights for us to see. What is shining right now in your life? What is moving you towards praise?
Elizabeth Alexander’s poem, written originally for President Obama’s inauguration, articulates a hopefulness that I find compelling. It’s a light for me. As you prepare for your Thanksgivings, may it help you identify sources of illumination, too.
Praise Song for the Day
by Elizabeth Alexander
Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other’s
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.
All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.
Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.
We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what’s on the other side.
I know there’s something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,
picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.
Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?
Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.
In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,
praise song for walking forward in that light.
Copyright © 2009 by Elizabeth Alexander.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash
