"As If to Demonstrate an Eclipse," by Billy Collins

I pick an orange from a wicker basket
and place it on the table
to represent the sun.
Then down at the other end
a blue and white marble
becomes the earth
and nearby I lay the little moon of an aspirin.

I get a glass from a cabinet,
open a bottle of wine,
then I sit in a ladder-back chair,
a benevolent god presiding
over a miniature creation myth,

and I begin to sing
a homemade canticle of thanks
for this perfect little arrangement,
for not making the earth too hot or cold
not making it spin too fast or slow

so that the grove of orange trees
and the owl become possible,
not to mention the rolling wave,
the play of clouds, geese in flight,
and the Z of lightning on a dark lake.

Then I fill my glass again
and give thanks for the trout,
the oak, and the yellow feather,

singing the room full of shadows,
as sun and earth and moon
circle one another in their impeccable orbits
and I get more and more cockeyed with gratitude.

+ Billy Collins

There are so many things to be thankful for that are near at hand: shelter, food, family, friends, the breath in our lungs, the strength in our limbs. But now and again, it’s worthwhile to zoom out — way out — to the largest frames we can imagine.

Earth’s precise orbit and spin, and how it makes possible virtually everything we love. The moon’s pull. The sun’s light. And the human imagination (itself a breathtakingly wide frame!), through which we can envision the whole galaxy, the whole cosmos, the stunning benevolence of God — and with which we can sing a simple, homemade canticle of thanks. A song to help resist the temptation to let our troubles eclipse the blessings all around us, and so to help revive our resolve to share them as widely as we can.

Happy Thanksgiving!
The SALT Team