thanksgiving poem

Roast the turkey that we gave you!
Bake the pumpkin pie! Be deft
While recalling, back in England,
Folks are thankful that you left!

Share and share alike, ye thundered,
Property ye banish here:
Why did no one plant, we wondered,
Hence the hunger no one feared.

Heaven will provide, you told us,
And we think it rather odd
That this thought with which ye scold us
Came from what ye think is God.

Borrowing your flintlock rifles,
Taught we how to hunt for deer,
Gave ye squash and grain for trifles
Such as brewing decent beer.

Shewed ye how to plant our maize
Learnt ye how to reap the sea,
While we ponder through the days
What damn fools you seem to be.

Fine tobacco we present you,
For an after-dinner smoke,
Has the one Great Spirit sent you
As a late-November joke?

‘Tis Thanksgiving! Now beside us
Feast ye as our kith and kin;
Mindful not that ye’ll provide us
Small-pox, guns and crates of gin.

By the Manitou, all-caring,
Eat and drink as brothers be;
Take what ‘ere ye wish, while sparing
Us your ideology.

Stephen Masty’s great-grandfather was an honorary Pottawatomi Indian.

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