lyrical portrait from a friend

-------- these are words that were given to me after i shared a vision with a friend about having a table someday where all kinds of people could come and eat and find love and warmth and celebrate our similarities rather than our differences.---------


We've grown tired in time, of endless weathered miles
Heavy footsteps slide, down this fabled path
As we heed the tale, spit loud from fathers' lips.
"Seek till searching stops, at the oldest table tree"
It's there where they once fled, left home without a cent
To the home where she has carved, a tree to eat and dream.

We each gathered 'round, and ate all her food.
Drank up the company, swallowed and chewed.
And we all came alone,
till we all bowed a head at the holy oak slab
In the beak of the earth, and the breast of the sea
Everyone's stomachs grin. She fed me.

Cracked leaves tossed high from trees, the young grass; it sprung deep
Through black field marsh's bog, past dead mango groves
Stands her slab fashioned of oak, where we drench our throats
Sprawled out in tangled branch, Take peace in sheltered grace
The song we sing, with mouths full and stomachs smiling
Food our mouths do meet, and Love; we're listening