What validates Thanksgiving in your mind;
I mean, it’s innate value, so consigned?
For how you look at it denotes its worth;
Perhaps conscripting knowledge of its birth.
May I suggest, however, my own view,
Where our Thanksgiving is observed anew.
For had it not been for the most devout,
This holiday would not have come about.
But those who first designed this act to give
Were doing so to show how best to live;
For they were new here, and had come to see
If they could keep their own identity.
In doing that, they weren’t afraid to share;
By sharing, they discovered how to care.
So our Thanksgiving’s not about a feast—
It’s the humanities involved, at least.
Their thankfulness to God presumed this act;
That their small colony was still intact.
They now were in a land where they could live
According to their own designs , and give
According to their own dictates, in which
They found through sharing ways that would enrich.
How true it is to find that once we share
That is a testimony that we care.
That first Thanksgiving, which we justly laud,
Was for themselves, their labors, neighbors, and for God!
© Richard Williams