AUTHOR’S NOTE: I posted this a few years ago, and wrote it about twenty years ago for Thanksgiving. Enjoy!

Oh Stately Bird

by Jeff Baker

            Oh stately bird

            Who is there that does not love you

            Our family gathered together, you the centerpiece of the table altar

            Old Ben Franklin, I am told

            Wanted you as the symbol of our fledgling nation

            Not the Eagle.

            If things had gone the other way, I cannot imagine us sitting down

            To a meal of tough, sinewy Eagle.

            Wild, bred, captured, fighting, wandering, independent, forever free.

            In many ways, our national symbol you may well be.

                                    –end–