He Set a Table: A Thanksgiving Poem

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The truth is that any given day serves a morsel of mourning along with a helping of thankfulness. In life, to taste only one is impossible–or delusion. So it is that of the hundreds of funerals I’ve had the sad, sacred honor of presiding over, the 23rd Psalm has most often been the core text. It poetically speaks the hope of deliverance in the darkness, not deliverance from the dark. A table set before my enemies! I’ve often imagined what that holy table was set with. This poem is my exploration of that imagined table in the wilderness of an unpredictable life. Know that God has set a table before you as well. Happy Thanksgiving, Eugene

He Set a Table

I walk through the fold of hills called Death, even

Through a whirling fog of fear, and though

Enemies hang to rocky steeps, moaning a dirge, I

Hunger for a pasture of rest, so I walk,

Hesitant as a dark dream returning, through

Grasping doubts and shrouded hope of healing. The

Voice of distant still waters sings me on. The valley,

Deep and trackless with the dark of 

Weed-bound mind and stuttering heart, yet the 

Path named Narrow pierces the shadow,

When suddenly, before me appears a table of

Plenty. Gauze-like candlelight extinguishes the song of death,

Pure white cloth, adorned with silver, vows life. You

Bejewel the table with plates of welcome and prepare

Steaming platters of brisket and fowl, fork and knife ready, a

Basket of buttery baked bread, crystal brimming blood red, the table

Trailing grape-draped bowls. There you stand before

Me, robed in purple muslin, crook in hand, gesturing me,

“Recline, pillow your back, slipper your feet,” my 

Eyes tearing relief and comfort, my cup

Of goodness and mercy in hand overflows.

Read more unabashed thankfulness here: Coneys, Friendship, and Kairos: A Thanksgiving Story and The Story of How a Knock-off Weber Grill Became a Real Treasure or Thanksgiving Psalm: Standing Boldly Before God’s Throne of Grace

This poem, based on Psalm 23, tries to answer the question of what God set the table with amidst the valley of the shadow of death. It also uses a poetic form, Golden Shovel, invented by Terrance Hayes in his poem, The Golden Shovel, which uses words from another poem, We Real Cool (In my case, selected lines from Psalm 23) as the last word for each line of the current poem, thus repeating the original poem within the new poem. I hope that on this day of Thanksgiving, it tells the truth of hope in the midst of trouble. In reading it, do not feel the need to pause at the end of each line. Eugene