A Laboratory Ritual of Thanksgiving

A final summer harvest this morning - basil, a few green tomatoes, a few Thai Pink Egg tomatoes - some habeneros and chilis too - rescued before the chilly rains that are supposed to arrive tonight.  An unusual storm is developing off our coast - perhaps it could be called a tropical storm, but not quite - with hurricane-forced winds predicted out in the Atlantic.  We'll have wind and rain and southern cold.  Regardless, in a few days my garden will look quite different - a transition that is hard to watch, but a neccesary part of the garden's rhythm.  I've brought the jade tree inside, as well as the pink lemon and the Tibouchina.  Everything else on the deck will get covered up - they'll be fine.

Last Friday the lab migrated over to Moe's Crosstown Tavern for our annual laboratory 'Give Thanks'.  Yes, I buy the beer...pitchers of something usually.  And it usually starts by me giving thanks for the lab for all of their hard work (okay, it's a bit sappy - but they do work hard and I'm not good at acknowledging that day-to-day).  Then we go around the table, one at a time, while each person gives thanks for something - the Q-bot, each other, the IT guys, grant support, folks that drive us nuts, former graduate students, great collaborators, interesting science and fascinating microorganisms, communication (yes, we try to communicate!), new samples, a shiny lab, a shiny lab with wonderful light in the early morning when things are still quiet and calm --- a friend asked me '...like, do you guys go around the table once or twice?' and I laughed, because we went around the table for well over an hour.  Gratefulness becomes contagious - and with beer, really contagious.  But truly, it is nice to every now and then stop and give thanks for what is around you - we are lucky in so many ways, and we are grateful. 

Katherine gave thanks for being in a laboratory that lets her read poetry (and actually enjoys it) - and in the spirit of our lab meetings, she brought a poem to read to us at Moe's - so we started off our laboratory ritual of thanksgiving with this wonderful poem: 

Thanks by Yusef Komunyakaa

Thanks for the tree
between me & a sniper's bullet.
I don't know what made the grass
sway seconds before the Viet Cong
raised his soundless rifle.
Some voice always followed,
telling me which foot
to put down first.
Thanks for deflecting the ricochet
against that anarchy of dusk.
I was back in San Francisco
wrapped up in a woman's wild colors,
causing some dark bird's love call
to be shattered by daylight
when my hands reached up
& pulled a branch away
from my face. Thanks
for the vague white flower
that pointed to the gleaming metal
reflecting how it is to be broken
like mist over the grass,
as we played some deadly
game for blind gods.
What made me spot the monarch
writhing on a single thread
tied to a farmer's gate,
holding the day together
like an unfingered guitar string,
is beyond me. Maybe the hills
grew weary & leaned a little in the heat.
Again, thanks for the dud
hand grenade tossed at my feet
outside Chu Lai. I'm still
falling through its silence.
I don't know why the intrepid
sun touched the bayonet,
but I know that something
stood among those lost trees
& moved only when I moved.

Comments

[Vera]

Wonderful poem.

[Annie in Austin]

Pam, you keep posting fabulous poetry but I feel too stunned to make a coherent comment. Just want to say I'm reading them and thank you.

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

[Pam]

Vera: That's what I thought too - pretty powerful.

Annie: Thank you - I must give all the credit to Katherine in my lab however. She selects them - she and her husband (Richard Garcia) are poets, and her husband teaches poetry workshops in the area. We're very lucky to have her around!