Now, that’s a kitchen table
Published on February 16, 2010
The Main Market celebrates its opening on West Main, with a poetic twist.
On an otherwise wet and dreary Tuesday in mid-February, our favorite philanthropist and Main Avenue visionary Jim Sheehan joined Mayor Mary Verner, and sustainable food expert Jennifer Hall at a shoulder-to-shoulder ribbon cutting ceremony an hour past mid-day. The Main Market has actually been open and functioning for a couple weeks with notice, if not fanfare. But today was the official opening ceremony and it seemed to be true, for a while, that there were more photographers in the store than there were shoppers.
It seems like only yesterday that the building now housing the market was a friendly Goodyear tire store at the northeast corner of Browne and Main, the rubber hitting the road between a downtown motel and the eclectic bee-hive of lawyers, activists, kids, artists, diners, etc., in the Community Building/Saranac complex. Now what we have is a blooming social experiment that is building a community between local farmers and mostly urban eaters. It comes complete with a dash of self-effacing humor in that you’ll notice tongue in cheek vestiges of the old tire store as you make your way around and through the new building.
For the growing number of writers on West Main, of which I am one, it was heartening, today, that an award-winning born poet and musician, Joy Harjo, was on hand to read her poetry as part of the opening ceremony. Joy is from Tulsa, Oklahoma and has Native American roots. The poem she read, today, is now literally carved into the large wooden table on the west side of the market, resting in an old service bay, where people can now pull up a chair, read (a book, a newspaper, or just the table itself) while they enjoy a fresh meal from the market.
Perhaps the World Ends Here
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 been 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.
–Joy Harjo
tjc