Perhaps the World Ends Here- Joy Harjo

For this week’s assignment, we were supposed to sign up for a poem-a-day service. I did, and I received three poems. (Most Sweet It Is With Unuplifted Eyes, The Lighted Window, and With My Brother.) However, none of these poems really spoke to me. So, I searched through the websites archives and found this poem 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.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

This is an example of modern poetry and lacks rhyme scheme or any sort of pentameter. It doesn’t really have a Volta (unless you count the last line, but that isn’t really a tone shift… or it could be before the line about a house in the rain, as the poem goes a bit deeper here). It does not, however, lack in meaning. In this poem, Harjo describes humanity through an inanimate object. She talks of the growth and maturity of individuals, as well as that of the species. After all, it is the need for food that has driven some of our most ingenious advances (ex. agriculture). And so, we never stray far from the kitchen table. Similarly, the table is not only a place for filling one’s stomach, but also a place to make memories and relationships. It certainty isn’t a coincidence that popular and important holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas revolve tremendously around the table.

Here, Harjo covers the basic characteristics of humanity with the symbolism of the table. In a repetitive motion, life goes around the table with growth and maturity, sorrow and joy, birth and death. The table remains constant. And if the world does end, it will end at the table.

If the world does end- the human part, at least-, with it will end this cycle. To say goodbye to the table is to say goodbye to the soul of our species.

Another thing about this poem is that it is “Foster-ific”. The connection between food and life is as old as humanity. To eat with someone is to trust them and to make them a part of your memory. Communion is deeply present in this poem.

This poem lacks an abundance of sound and literary devices, but, as I said before, it does not lack in meaning.