Thanksgiving -

Family, friends, turkey, stuffing, cashews, cranberries, and pumpkin pie with whip cream,
The big dinner table, rustic wood stove fire warming the household, why does this sound like a dream ?
Thats because if you know how I write, this poem will express how I feel, and intros arent always what they seem,
That said, I hope everyone is with family and friends this holiday, and truly have a Happy Thanksgiving !

Pilgrims aboard the mayflower ships, cross the big blue atlantic, finally landing upon the plymouth rocks,
Disease ridden, rats abundant, supplies and coopers barrels empty, no more filled with salted pork hamhocks,
As our hardscrabble camps grow, the natives bring gifts to us upon harvest day of; maize, berries, gourds, and turkey tomcocks,
For the indigenous peoples we brought no gifts except; trouble, greed, the measles, and the pocks.

Ceremonial with compassion, care and concern, truly it must have been, trusting for the first Thanksgiving sake,
Indigenous and whites, must have had faith and hope in their hearts, and wanted to give then, more than they wanted to take,
The settlement camps grew, as did our numbers, as well as the white mans new law of the land,
Hindsight is 20/20, the natives could never have foreseen, the outcome of the great white leaders plan.

How far it has gone, since that day, in the wrong branching; hating, distrustful, destructive direction,
How far we have came back, the other way, never enough though, will there ever be a true resurrection ?
Land rights, water rights, fishing rights, hunting rights, reservations, casinos, and sovereign nations,
Thats all good, but what good does it do, when the great white leaders plan, is to incorporate and give back meager rations.

I hope that things will evolve in America, with which we did all migrate to, settle, and without asking, we did take,
Now there is current day immigrants, like 5 million from the south, no difference than us at the time, does it morally make, 
I dont know what the answer is, as the America of today can never be big enough, to make everyone sufficiently satisfied,
It seems like it has become not only the land for you and me, but also the land of the citizens with differences that divide.

Happy Thanksgiving

D. Matthew Beebe