Poetry Friday: Giving Thanks

Likely intended to be purchased and enjoyed over the Thanksgiving holiday, I instead recommend Katherine Paterson's Giving Thanks now, now at the close of one year and the beginning of the new. These beautiful prayers and poems are nestled in Pamela Dalton's exquisite scissor cuts. This is a treasure to call to mind all we can be thankful for and all there is to joy in.



"Gratitude is from the same root word as 'grace'...
Thanksgiving is from the same root word as 'think,'
   so that to think is to thank."

Willis P. King, "Pulpit Preaching"

Or how about this Vietnamese Farmer's Prayer?

"Heaven,
Please make the rain fall,
So I have water to drink;
So I may plow my rice field;
So I may have my bowl of rice;
And my fish in great slices."

Happy Poetry Friday!

Giving Thanks, Poems, Prayers, and Praise Songs of Thanksgiving
Edited and Reflected upon by Katherine Paterson
Illustrated by Pamela Dalton
Handprint Books, 2013