Haibun: Grateful
With the smell of an American Thanksgiving washed off in the autumn rains and Christmas now the new normal, I hope the gratitude of Thursday’s holiday lingers.
For me, my gratitude lingers in two ways: what is and isn’t. As for what is, it is the unfolding of life around me. Whether it’s in the stories I know of myself and of my family, or the song of these San Tan Mountains, it is what is. Watching life grow is the witness of joy.
Another way gratefulness comes up and through me is in what isn’t. America’s holiday of Thanksgiving is based on failed myths that retell a story of genocide and religious oppression as generosity and religious freedoms. So pausing to remember the Pequot People—the people the American Pilgrims claimed they eradicated—or looking at what the Rohingya in Malaysia and the Uighurs of China face, I’m grateful for what isn’t happening in my life. I’m not facing daily persecution or extinction, so, I’m grateful that the oppression they face hasn’t arrived at our shores.
endless desert scapes
warmed at sun’s escape: gold tints.
shortened autumn days
For me, my gratitude lingers in two ways: what is and isn’t. As for what is, it is the unfolding of life around me. Whether it’s in the stories I know of myself and of my family, or the song of these San Tan Mountains, it is what is. Watching life grow is the witness of joy.
Another way gratefulness comes up and through me is in what isn’t. America’s holiday of Thanksgiving is based on failed myths that retell a story of genocide and religious oppression as generosity and religious freedoms. So pausing to remember the Pequot People—the people the American Pilgrims claimed they eradicated—or looking at what the Rohingya in Malaysia and the Uighurs of China face, I’m grateful for what isn’t happening in my life. I’m not facing daily persecution or extinction, so, I’m grateful that the oppression they face hasn’t arrived at our shores.
endless desert scapes
warmed at sun’s escape: gold tints.
shortened autumn days
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| & Haiku: Gold Tint |
