Thanks and No Thanks

Every once in a while a poem comes out and I can hear James Broughton whispering in my ear!

Thanks and No Thanks.

Thanks for aliveness that keeps us alive
Thanks for the ripeness that plumps us and pumps us
Thanks for the bounty of earth water fire
Thanks for the brotherhood burning inside us

Thanks for the questions that quest us inside
Thanks for the music that sings us
Thanks for the motions that speak when words don’t
Thanks for the food that sustains us

Thanks for the courage to go deep and wide
Thanks for the knowing to trust
Thanks for the fears we can carry inside
Thanks for the urges to thrust

Thanks for the wisdom that comes from together
Thanks for the palpable air
Thanks for the wealth of creation and loss
Thanks for the power to breathe

No thanks for the limits of kindness and patience
No thanks for the lack of good ears
No thanks for the eight years of Cheney and Bush
No thanks for the mongers of fear

No thanks for the shortness of days and of breath
No thanks for the corporate greed
No thanks for forgetting our gifts and our health
No thanks for our blindness to need

No thanks for overpackaging
No thanks for undermining
No thanks for pollution
No thanks for silence on things that matter

— Stephen Silha
Thanksgiving 2009