I’m thankful
for the chestnut-backed chickadee, flitting
from branch to branch, as the last leaves
wave like tattered gold and burgundy gloves
on the sycamore outside the window

I’m thankful
for all the trees—birch, cypress, ponderosa pine,
redwood, oak and western red cedar—swaying
on the hillside, and for summer leaves of emerald
and jade, fall ones of copper, crimson and canary

I’m thankful
that green leaves have stomata like little donuts
that let carbon dioxide in and oxygen out
through their holes, and that chloroplasts always
stand ready to create the oxygen we breathe

I’m thankful
for wind, which at this moment animates the trees,
bringing in a storm from the sea, and for sky
padded with clouds that surround small pools
of blue, and for rain that will soon appear

I’m thankful
that love is the glue that binds our lives,
that my daughter and grandchildren live close by,
and that circuits in silicon chips ensure friends
are always easy to reach when I need them

But what should I feel
knowing that Pilgrims and Wampanoags shared
a harvest festival in Plymouth in 1621, ushering
in more than three centuries of genocide, land grabs,
forced conversion and cultural suppression?

May it be
that truth remain stronger than lies, love be stronger
than hate, the future more just than the past and close
at hand as all the colors and stirrings of spring
and new leaves soon to unfurl on the liquidambars.