Giving Thanks With a Love Poem

This will post on the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving, which I know only some of you celebrate. 

But even those who do not have the specific holiday of Thanksgiving certainly have times of giving thanks.  And in thinking about what kind of poetry arises with the giving of thanks, my mind came up with a love poem. 

While we don’t always couple thankfulness with love, they seem to me to be closely linked.  Sometimes, the link is obvious--there may be a person whom we love for whom we are deeply thankful. 

But even small, seemingly casual expressions of thanks, when genuine, are little expressions of love.  Love in lozenge form, if you will; mini mints of love which we may give on a daily basis.  

We can debate this. (I’m sure you can come up with instances of persons you have thanked whom you don’t much like.)   I still believe that any moment of genuine thanks is also a little (maybe very little) lozenge of love. 

But let me get to the prompt!

Which is to write a love poem. It may be about love offered in thanks (or not), and it may be about love offered to an object or non-human animal as much as to another human.  It may be about the love that one sometimes feels emanating from the universe or from the memory of your grandmother or from your own heart or your dearest partner, or the love you offer back to these.  

All I ask is that whatever you write is genuine.  (Even if genuinely tongue-in-cheek.) 

Happy Day. 

Manicddaily/Outlawyer, Karin Gustafson here. The pics above are all illustrations from recent (or coming) children’s books of mine--Melanie’s Twinkle, Does Melanie Like Melon?, Good Light Room and Little Dog and a Taste of Adventure; all available on Amazon.  I have recently published Momoir, Maybe, a book occasioned by the death of my mother.