This is the right time of year for a Thanksgiving post. After all, the holiday is tomorrow, I’m happily coming to the end of a tough but satisfying year, and have everything to be thankful for.

But in light of the events in Ferguson, Missouri this week, it seems simply crass to talk about anything else, and I’m finding it frankly impossible to think about much else but a young man taken so callously, so needlessly, from his family and community.

Maybe the best thing I can say today is that I’m thankful that poetry gives us a place to turn in these, our worst moments as a society, and in our collective grief. I’m thankful that poetry gives voice to what feels, in the moment, too painful to say.

It’s to that end that I leave you with a poem that feels especially prescient today. Please follow this link to The Poetry Foundation’s page where you can read Danez Smith’s “alternate names for black boys.”