Back to the Table

“Georgia, the Art of the Feast.” Photo: Irma Sharikadze, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

Here is an occasional poem I wrote back in 2011 as a table grace for a GardenShare event in Canton, NY. GardenShare is a locavore organization that shares the bounty with schools and food pantries, etc., and promotes sustainable agriculture and good food policy. I rediscovered it in going through old email correspondence with the late, great Vermont poet David Budbill. Until I ran across it again I had no memory of ever having written such a thing.

Back to the Table

Lord, Lord. Here we all are again, gathered round the table.
Something smells good—and I’m not talking about
your cheap aftershave, Uncle Jim—I mean kitchen good.
Makes me grateful to have a nose—such as it is.

Grateful too for this company. These friends–both convivial
and annoying, my relations—the dear and the dreadful.
Strangers—who are family as long as the food holds out.
And for all enthusiastic eaters of every time and place

who so love the world they want to wrap it with their bodies,
who labor like mad scientists at evening kitchen counters
brewing endless arcane and sometimes unpleasant compotes
in the hope of one astonishing gastronomic feat. Bless them.

And bless these Pac-Man children of ours, chomping their way
through the maze of shelves in the fridge–ng-ng-ng-ng-ng ng ng ng.
Bless these dyspeptic old farts, well a-nod before dessert and coffee.
And bless me too, Lord; for I fear I may do myself a little damage.

Bless the farmer, by whose magical sweat dirt and rain and seed
transform to corn, mutate to potato, come into bean, bulge into bulb.
Bless the turned earth, stinking with spring, and all that springs from it:
tuber and pod, root and grain, fruit and leaf, stalk and flower.

It’s all good. And good too, are our munificent brother beings:
thanks for the bees and the cheese, for ghee and goat,
for the egg and the chicken it rode in on. And for all our brothers
upon whom we dine, until it’s time for them to dine upon us.

Thanks for cultured bacteria, who, like You, toil invisibly on our behalf,
for yeast, laboring a thousand generations to make this croissant flaky,
who transform water into wine, and multiply the loaves of our daily bread.
May their reward be as generous as this pastry I weep to contemplate.

Bless my pie hole, as ready to receive as any baby bird, that chews its way
through space and time, from birth to death. This constant companion,
my ever-emptying belly, that delights in soup and subs, salad and salsa,
sesame and saltimbocca, sassafras and stew—that stands ready,

and yea—more than ready, for whatever may emerge from the kitchen.
Holy is the hand that stirs the pot, holy the hand that serves, holy
this table of our communion. My tongue and teeth consider all this
and declare it beautiful. I open wide with words of praise.

Note: unpublished draft