Some of you will know of my friend, Duncan Newcomer, a Monitor reader and Lincoln scholar. I’ve mentioned him here before. In honor of Thanksgiving in the United States – a national holiday established by Abraham Lincoln – he sent me this poem made up of different Lincoln texts, perfectly calibrated for this moment in America and the world. I hope you enjoy.

So we must think anew,
And act anew.
We must disenthrall ourselves.
We are not enemies,
But friends.
We must not be enemies.
We cannot separate.
There is no line, straight or crooked,
Upon which to divide.
We cannot escape history.
No personal significance, or insignificance,
Can spare one or another of us.

The mystic chords of memory
Will yet swell the chorus of union
To every living heart
And hearthstone,
And again touch
The better angels of our nature.