Thanksgiving

“Love is not all. It is not food nor drink.” Edna St. Vincent Millay

Nor is food love, but palate’s sport alone. Even with ceremony, without toast or vow, it is just means of keeping flesh on bone. But table and altar are confused somehow. We substitute our food again, again for rites of love. Look how this buffet sinks with golden fowl and platters of grain and candles for our eyes to drink.

Love is not food. But in the name of those with parched throats, who could not eat or pray, whose empty mouths have closed, whose bellies swelled with pain not meat, we call it sustenance when it is shared. And sharing we call prayer.

From Songs of Bread, Songs of Salt, Ashod Press