My dear boy
This I know
The great relationships
Of your life
Will be adaptable
They will flex
And move like
A River willow
They will give
Shade like a
Prairie oak when
Life’s blazing heat
Weakens you they
Will wither and
Fall like elms
In late autumn
And then with
Time they will
Sprout again like
Garden daffodils bringing
Glee and joy
These relationships last
Forever because they
Know that they’re
Not there for
Just a season
And there is
A day here
In America on
The last Thursday
In November when
The skies are
Grey and littered
With snow and
The wind blows
Cold against faces
That people carry
Pots dishes pans
Wine and desserts
Into friendly houses
To gather around
A table giving
Thanks for those
Most important things
The greatest of
Which are their
Families however that
Group is defined
A day of
Laughter and football
Of stories and
Old jokes of
Belly busting feasts
Here in America
Today is Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving to
My friends and
Family I’m thinking
Of you all
The world has
Failed to be
A safe place
It’s innocence lost
Replaced instead with
Selfishness and despair
A barren place
Occupied by the
Damned who wander
Aimlessly ignorantly and
Painfully absent of
Even fond memories
Husks of what
They once were
Simply coldly forgotten
Content instead of
Heaping noxious travesties
Designed to fuel
Their flames of
Hopelessness upon the
Living that have
Barricaded themselves behind
The ever eroding
Walls of hope
Fear not being
One of the
Damned for those
Devastated souls do
Not read poetry
And like a
Late April pond
In Northern Wisconsin
We’ve weathered the
Cruelest harshest and
Frigid months of
Our relationship hunkering
Down like foxes
Deep in burrows
Choosing to wait
For winters passing
And like said
Pond continues to
Flow and grow
Beneath the ice
We must choose
To embrace what
We’ve become during
These dead months
Or remember what
We were all
Those seasons ago
There are many
Ones the one
Over there the
One last night
That one and
This one but
The one your
One the One
And only One
It’s that One
Upon which you
Compare all of
The other ones
If the one
That you’re with
Can’t shoulder such
Scrutiny from you
Then that one
Isn’t the One
But one more
One in a
Sea of ones
HARLAN DIDRICKSON 