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I sent my daughter, a teacher in Bastrop, Texas, beautiful leaves of all colors. Texas doesn’t have leaves that fall from trees. Her school class made a big Thanksgiving poster with all the leaves I sent for their Thanksgiving Variety Show.

I am so thankful for family, friends and good neighbors who are all raking leaves, something I really don’t mind doing. I would like sharing these poems with readers.

“Slow Me Down, Lord!”

Slow me down, Lord!

Ease the pounding of my heart

By the quieting of my mind

Steady my harried pace

With a vision of the eternal reach of time.

Give me, amidst the confusions of my day, The calmness of the everlasting hills.

Break the tensions of my nerves

With the soothing music of the singing streams

That live in my memory.

Help me to know

The magical restoring power of sleep.

Teach me the art

Of taking minute vacations of slowing down

to look at a flower; to chat with an old friend or make a new one;

to pat a stray dog; to watch a spider to build a web;

to smile at a child; or to read a few lines from a good book.

Remind me each day

That the race is not always to the swift;

That there is more to life than increasing its speed.

Let me look upward Into the branches of the towering oak

And know that it grew great and strong

Because it grew slowly and well.

Slow me down, Lord,

And inspire me to send my roots deep Into the soil of life’s enduring values

That I may grow toward the stars

Of my greater destiny.

— By Wilferd A. Peterson

Count them one by one

Perhaps we have not counted

All of our blessings one by one;

Perhaps we have not bothered

To remember whence they come;

And maybe we have taken

Just for granted all the things

That the good Lord has created

And the gifts that nature brings;

The autumn hills in glory robed,

A golden field of grain.

A sunset’s dazzling splendor

Or the Milky Way’s great plain,

The starry sky’s sublimity,

The ocean’s mighty power;

The wonder of creation In the petal of a flower.

And so, if we have failed to show

By word or act or deed

That we are thankful unto Him

Who fills our daily need,

May this day show we’re grateful

When we add up all the sum

Of the blessings we remember,

As we count them one by one.

— Author unknown

Mavis Jacobs Hanson

Albert Lea