Last night our oldest came to the Thanksgiving table prepared. He read to us about the Piscataway Tribe, the indigenous people who lived on the land where we live and where we were sitting down to eat. After dinner he showed us the movie Awake: A Dream from Standing Rock (on Vimeo). It was a poem and a documentary. It was beautiful and heart-breaking and inspiring. This morning I am feeling grateful for his leadership, his learning, his teaching, for the abundance we share, for this year’s reminders to be grateful for everything, for people who stand up to injustice, for people who make art, for people who see the connections between this moment and so many others.
I was reminded of this poem by Joy Harjo.
Perhaps the World Ends Here
BY JOY HARJO
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought 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 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.
You can read the rest of the poem here on the Poetry Foundation website.
I hope you had a good, safe, healthy Thanksgiving no matter what form it took this year.
Liz
