An Occasional Speech

at the Interfaith Thanksgiving Gathering

by Grace Paley

Anyone who gets to be

eighty years old says thank you

to the One in charge then im-

mediately begins to complain why

were these years such a historical

mess why was my happiness

and willing gratitude interfered with

every single decade no sooner

were the normal spats with parents

lovers children ended than the

interfering greed of total strangers

probably eighty years old as well

and full of their own bloated thank-

fulness at unbelievable success in

the expropriation of what belonged

to other people and peoples not

to mention the economic degradation

leading to thanks engendering

profits in our own country and

in the innocent or colluding parts

of the world

I am sadly reminded

of the first couple of our American

thanksgivings thank you thank you

our first Americans together with

the Absolutely First Americans within a gener-

ation or half of one the first Americans

proceeded to drive the Absolutely First

Americans from their villages rivers

fields over mountains and across the con-

tinent out out they cried almost at

the same time shouting thank you thanks

thank you