Dinnertime
I set the table with care.
I open the soft white table cloth and
spread it neatly across the worn wood.
Bending down I hear fragments of
old conversations—water spewed when
laughter
bubbles up too fast; small tight words
when tears
choke the throats.I ease the cloth over tiny drops
of candle wax from
dinners that stretched into hours, filled
with rambling
paragraphs of school, and cars, and
friends, and God and
work, prayer, and body changes. Words
woven with
humor and trust and love.
I set the table with
care
The garden flowers, though small,
are bright and brave and proud in the
little glass vase.
I set the table with care
For I know
I am about to enter the sacred.
—Tina Swartz
Burkholder, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
is Director of Foster Care and Adoption
at Bethanna.
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