Thanksgiving

My November Guest - Robert Frost

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise

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What are you thankful for?

Above all, I'm thankful for family and faith. I'm also grateful for the opportunity to teach smart, interesting students at Fideles. I'm thankful for peace, books, Netflix, friends, forgiveness, the Bible, crafts, the Big Creek Greenway, Steph Curry, creativity, baseball, my dog, cooking, e.e. cummings, and coffee.

What about the Robert Frost poem? He uses personification to describe Sorrow as his companion. She delights in the barrenness of November, in the grey, faded natural world. How does Frost feel about November's dullness? What is his relationship to Sorrow/sorrow? We are usually drawn to fresh, growing beauty in Nature: spring blossoms, green leaves, flowing streams. Can you see any beauty in nature's death, decay, depletion, emptiness? 

Two weeks from tomorrow is America's second-best holiday (according to my children). I've hosted Thanksgiving every year since 1998. It's quite an undertaking: my extended family refers to it as my Super Bowl. Several years ago I was intrigued by this Slate article about a woman who makes about as many pies as she has guests for Thanksgiving, and now I do the same.

Use this blog entry to write about the poem, gratitude, Thanksgiving traditions, or the month of November.