Tables

table1


installed in Mussee d'Orsay,
speaks to me of how much less we
now value the time it takes
to teach our hands how to do something very well.

accompanied by a single chair
and tulip lamp, it
conjures up a small parade of images
of those who came to sit
beside the rose garden window
offering and demanding various types of payment.




table2


the writing table in the bank
of my childhood

(which always closed for lunch)

is gone

unlike the French, we have not honoured it
or acknowledged to ourselves the enormity
those mortgages held for our grandparents.




table3


the farm kitchen table always seem to enjoy
more intimate conversations
(especially during lambing)
than those which spend their nights
reflecting the mind your own blind eye of a street light.

while urban tables and their owners
flit from apartment to flat
and then on to the suburbs, farm tables
stand for generations grinning, groaning,
giving thanks
season by season
in the moonlight.

on the farm there’s more likely to be a Bible,
seed catalogue, Reader’s Digest nearby,
cloth napkins, molasses pitcher, lemonade.
much less likely that a warm TV will squawk,
squirm and whine about the food.