To Live Is to Be Prey

November 26, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem is a Thanksgiving poem about eating and being eaten.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

To live is to be prey. Meals for microbes.

Horror hangs in the blood like a barracuda

As packs of ravenous viruses howl at the moon.

No flesh is but food. Fierce hunger waits at the crossings

Knowing nothing but lust for the taste of our gristle,

Singing hallelujahs to the Lord.

Give thanks, then, too, for the gift of robust hunger;

In humble gratitude, for the legacy of lust.

Vividly we live and die, our suffering

In perfect harmony with our feeding frenzy;

Nor can we be else but both murderers and murdered,

Grateful for the unsought grace of being.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/tolive.html . For more poems about gratitude, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

November 22: Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

November 23: Thank You for All that You Have Given

November 24: Thanksgiving Is a Moment to Remember

November 25: Thanksgiving Is a Time for Giving Thanks

November 26: To Live Is to Be Prey