Around the Table That Grandad Built

The first line of Joy Harjo’s poem, “Per­haps The World Ends Here” is a line that speaks to me at a deep level.

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

It was while mem­o­riz­ing this beau­ti­ful poem years ago that I wrote the ear­ly drafts of Around the Table That Grandad Built. I am a believ­er in the pow­er of shar­ing a meal, the impor­tance of kitchen tables, and the grace of gath­er­ing gen­er­a­tions of friends and fam­i­ly togeth­er with the excuse that we all need to eat. I’m with Har­jo that the kitchen table is where chil­dren are edu­cat­ed in what it means to be human—we absolute­ly make women and men as we pass dish­es around and but­ter the bread. I believe we humans need a place to sing with joy and sor­row, and to give thanks. A table is a good place to do that.

I love a well-set table. It doesn’t have to be fan­cy, but I like for there to be col­or, his­to­ry, and good food placed on the table before every­one sits down. I enjoy “dress­ing” the table with col­or­ful linens…arranging the dish­es and sil­ver­ware … plac­ing flow­ers just so … light­ing can­dles …. I enjoy qui­et din­ners with just one or two fel­low din­ers, and I enjoy more eclec­tic and bois­ter­ous meals where peo­ple are squished togeth­er around the table and every­one brings some­thing to share. What can I say? I come from a line of women who delight in dish­es and nap­kins and food and gath­er­ing every­one up.

It was a joy to watch artist Jaime Kim make the words of this book come alive in the illus­tra­tions. The table she drew looks very much like our family’s kitchen table, which she had no way of know­ing. She also could not have known how thrilled I’d be with the sec­ond to last spread—the table all set, seen from above, hands clasped around it, a feast ready to eat….

For these hands we hold,
for tasty good food,
for fam­i­ly and friends,
for grace that is giv­en
and love that is shared,
we give thanks….

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

May it be so, I say. May it be so.