Come to the Table

Dear Friends, 

We think about tables around Thanksgiving time. This year, whether we eat at a crowded table or at work or alone, let us name our past meal companions. Reach back to the tables of your past. Remember that everything happens at the table.  

Here is a poem by Joy Harjo, our first Native American poet laureate.

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

~ Susan Schantz, SSJ

https://www.poetrycenter.org/at-table-poems-inspired-by-us-poet-laureate-joy-harjo/