Perhaps the World Ends Here

Phoebe Wahl

Perhaps the World Ends Here

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

The gifts of the earth are bought 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 the 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.

Joy Harjo

This poem got me thinking of how much of my life centers around the kitchen table. I almost picture it like a magnet - each of us in the family coming to it, moving away, swinging back in, circling it, changing its position, its seating, but all of us somehow perpetually attracted and drawn to it, adding and subtracting others... What a powerful symbol. All of life a sitting at the table. (The title really gets to me.) It reads quite matter-of-fact, but every sentence is full of after-images and reverberations. This table. My portion of life.


 

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