Thanksgiving

We spent the morning and afternoon at my parent's for Thanksgiving. 31 relatives were present. We ate a bird and stuffing and potatoes and salads and rolls and deviled eggs and too many sweets to list. The aunts always keeping space in the kitchen with their stories and memories and gossip--their voices rising and rolling like the land in which they grew up, a place deep in the countryside. The uncles forever sprawled on sofas watching football with few words yet with a kind of contented knowing. Breath and bones. Cousins and siblings and kids as couriers, traveling from room to room to the outdoors in haste like blood cells. As if together we form the whole intention of our ancestors. And how many it takes to shape them. I am thankful for history, for the present it forms.