Marion
Montgomery says this Yankee ‘holiday’ is full of fakery:
THANKSGIVING
A Funeral Chant
There
is no family ritual in the blue November morning
No
family pig scraped white, steaming in the blue air
No
scalding vat choked with sogged bristles
There
is no sacrificial pig suspended in the blue November morning, snout down
No
tub receiving the pink-blooming, steaming entrails, the steady drip of the dead
blood under the grandfather knife
There
is no sacramental supper of the first flesh of the sacrificial pig
No
hospitable liver steaming on the evening table
Nor
white flesh bubbling on the fire to render the essential summer
Now,
too, is the clear cellophane season of the year, where impersonally the family
executive in slacks
Buys
the impersonal pink ham and the rain-clear demijohn of synthetic fat under
hospital lamps
--Dry Lightning,
Lincoln, Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1960, p. 37
--
Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England,
South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð,
unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
No comments:
Post a Comment