patrickkanouse.com Blog

Thanksgiving Day

Abraham Lincoln’s October 3, 1863 declaration:

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Some Notes on Inspiration

As I write this, I am not writing poetry. I began doing some work on a couple of poems, but I did not get very far. I think I read a quote from Joyce Carol Oates once where she said that sometimes a writer needs to time to just stare off into space for a while, time to simply let the mind do nothing, time to stare out a window without expectation of writing a line. This is a statement I wholeheartedly agree with, but it is another way of saying time to daydream. As a poet, I just tend to daydream in lines, images, phrases, words, etc.

I’ve discussed inspiration before, but it is something I revisit over and again. In a recent interview with Charlie Rose, Kay Ryan stated that she distrusted inspiration, which is a good thing. That said, we cannot ignore it either. In some ways, those snippets of inspiration are the moments writers live for, the moments when you feel possessed (and oh those moments can be flittingly brief), which is, perhaps, why Gerard Manley Hopkins so distrusted the experience (and why the Jesuits deemed the poetic practice with suspicion…good for them though that they let Hopkins write “The Wreck of the Deutschland” and not stop him after that…or we would be denied such beautiful lines as “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.”).

I often find inspiration when I’m reading history or science books. One of my poems I’m particularly fond of, “Ruins Above the Sea,” was inspired by a few paragraphs from Norman Davies’ Europe:

The eruption of Thera (Santorini) was one of the greatest events of European prehistory. In one crack of doom…30 cubic kilometres of rock, fire, and sulphuric acid were blown twenty miles into the stratosphere. At a distance of only one hundred miles, the watchers at Cnossos could not have failed to see the plume and the flashes, and then the pillar of fiery ash…They would have seen the sea recede as it rushed to fill the gash in the seabed, only to recover with the dispatch of a might tidal wave that swamped the Cretan shore under a hundred feet of brine.

Davies’ description continues, which provides some of the other details of my poem. I’ve heard stories on NPR that have inspired at least three poems, one of them “Conversing with the Stars.” I’ve recently been reading Collapse by Jared Diamond, and I read this line: “Friend, is there any land where the sound of the sea is not heard?” This is a quote that Diamond cites, but still, I found the line amazing, intriguing. The inspiration of this for me may be entirely contextual. Growing up in Indiana and Illinois, the ocean was not close enough to hear. Nor were mountains close enough to see. There always seemed this dichotomy of people from flat lands: did they seek the ocean or mountains more? I sought the sea. Something has always pulled me to it. I think my love of Venice is part of that pull. I love the mountains, but they enter my imagination less (at least I think so) frequently and with less awe. So this line in Diamond’s book enchanted me.

As so often with “inspiration,” it may lead nowhere. It could lead to something though. And tonight, I poked at it. I wrote some lines. I let my mind free. I listened to the rain and just held the pen. Not much was written. I’m not sure much was thought. But I am convinced it was all worth it.

On This Day of Voting

I have been reading Edmund S. Morgan’s The Meaning of Independence, which is a book well worth reading. The below quote is from Thomas Jefferson, though not quoted in Morgan’s book. I was just contemplating the nature of our government, our people, our institutions, etc. And, of course, all quotes can be counteracted by another quote (often from the same source). Nonetheless, I found this timely.
“Reformation in government follows reformation in opinion.” –Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789. ME 7:366, Papers 15:138