(with apologies to Robert Frost) Something there is that doesn’t love a poem of thanksgiving right now, that chokes on superficial sentimentality, and quashes any wanton expressions of joy, and forcefully diverts energy into darker discourse. There is a war, it says. There are dead and dying and grieving and raging and broken-hearted people strewn everywhere. Something there is that doesn’t love a poem of thanksgiving right now, that judges it blasphemous to give thanks in the face of the unfaceable. And yet— gratitude stubbornly arises, tear-stained and insistent. And so I give thanks for the deep pink of an October sunset reflected on the blue green ocean, and for the elderly couple stepping carefully out of their sandals and ambling to the water’s edge, hand in tender hand; and for the old man encouraging his little granddaughter to climb the rocks lining the barrier wall -- no hint of anxiety in his voice, no doubting of her capacity for risking and becoming. I give thanks for the