Kitchen Table Dharma: dreams caught (6)

Thursday, April 12, 2012

a stranger

your hand

the stranger

the lines and creases

the curve of knuckles

the split of cuticles

a roughness catching on fibers

making me startle

a stranger

yet there it lies

arched around my knee

welcome.

i don't have a kitchen table and i miss that.

kitchen tables are where free roaming feelings gravitate,

where they find listeners and sympathizers and collaborators.
kitchen tables are where families share meals and accounts of days,

where eyes are met in secret union, where voices are heard,

where silence is refreshing, where bellies are filled with love

and blessings are offered.

kitchen tables are where stories are told,

fresh picked flowers are placed,

homework is completed,

and shopping bags are dropped.

my mom tells a story about my grandparents and aunts

regularly putting my sister, brother and I, as babies,

in the middle of the kitchen table,

like turkeys on Thanksgiving,

keeping us safe as they told stories,

hooting and hollering,

surrounding us in a protective fence made of their laughter.

when i think of meeting a hero or a lost love,

i see us at a kitchen table, a warm mug of coffee cupped in both hands,

maybe some fresh baked cookies or bright colored fruit

creating a connection between us.

It is an intimate setting where i am free to be me.

it is seated at the kitchen table

where things begin to make sense.

Kitchen Table Dharma