Uncle Dave's Thanksgiving Day Prayer
by
Lou and Peter Berryman
Thanksgiving Day, Uncle Dave was our guest
Who reads the Progressive, which makes him depressed
We asked Uncle Dave if he’d like to say grace;
A dark desolation crept over his face
"Thanks," he began, as he gazed at his knife,
"to poor Mr. Turkey for living his life
All crowded and cramped in a great metal shed
Where life was a drag, then they cut off his head."
"Thanks," he went on, "for the grapes in my wine,
Picked by sick women of seventy-nine,
Scrambling all morning for bunch after bunch
Then brushing the pesticide off of their lunch."
"Thanks for the stuffing, all heaped on my fork,
Shiny with sausage descended from pork.
I think of the trucks full of pigs that I see
And can’t help imagine what they think of me."
Continuing, "I’d like to thank, if you please,
Our salad bowl hacked out of tropical trees;
And for this mahogany table and chair,
We thank all the jungles that used to be there."
"For cream in our coffee and milk in our mugs
We thank all the cows full of hormones and drugs,
Whose calves are removed at a very young age
And force-fed as veal in a minuscule cage."
"Oh, thanks for the furnace that heats up these rooms,
And thanks for the rich fossil fuel it consumes,
Corrupting the atmosphere - ounce after ounce,
But we’re warm and toasty, and that is what counts."
"I’m grateful," he said, "for these clothes on my back,
Lovely and comfy and cheap off the rack,
Fashioned in warehouses, noisy and cold,
In China by seamstresses seven years old."
"And thanks for my silverware setting that shines
In memory of miners who died in the mines,
Worn down by the shoveling of tailings in piles
Whose runoff destroys all the rivers for miles."
"We thank the reactors for our chandelier,
Although the plutonium won’t disappear
For hundreds of decades; it still will be there,
But a few more Chernobyls, and who’s gonna care?"
- sighed Uncle Dave, “though there’s more to be told;
The wine’s getting warm, and the bird’s getting cold.”
And with that, he sat down, as he mumbled again,
“Thank you for everything. Amen!”
We felt so guilty when he was all through.
It seemed there were one of two things we could do:
Live without food in the nude in a cave –
Or next year, have someone say grace besides Dave.