In order to view this poem with the line breaks the author intended, we suggest reading it on a computer screen or in the landscape orientation on your phone or tablet.

Thank You Day
Patricia Smith Ranzoni

The dawn alarm has rung
for the hunters to rise, go
with their gear and guns
to the woodlot where they
will stay all day or ‘til luck
and skill appear together.
Clutching the stair rail

through the dark she feels
her way along the steps he’s
adorned with his sweet pie
pumpkins on each outside
ledge edging a path of gold
up and down from heaven
for safe keeping in the cold.

When she sees it her heart
rises with the swelling sun
and she knows this is the
day she can, and must,
after mixing up her bread,
say her hardest and most
necessary thank yous.

—
Patricia Smith Ranzoni never ceases to be astonished that she was born up the Penobscot River in 1940 in a cold boarding house for children on the edge of wilderness in Lincoln, Maine, before the grid, learned to submit poems around the world on a duct-taped laptop and has had them published across the U.S. and abroad, most recently in Wising Up Press’s Crossing Class: The Invisible Wall anthology; The Resolute Bear Press’ 3 Nations Anthology: Native, Canadian & New England Writers; Littoral Book’s Balancing Act 2: An Anthology of Poems by Fifty Maine Women; North Country Press’ Still Mill: Poems, Stories & Songs of Making Paper in Bucksport, Maine 1930-2014; and Tellus Journal, Animalities e Mundoi Acquatico (IT).

Know anyone who might appreciate reading Patricia’s poem?
Why not share the link to this page?

Have you read these poems:
All Together Now by Charles Finn
Empty Nesters by Sarah Stern

Table of Contents