Fidelity to Objects

“Love calls us to the things of this world.”—Augustine 

The ponderous round oak table 
calls our family of ten 
to their places, 
the crowns of our heads 
like small planets 
stilled in orbit, 
mealtime settings like jewels 
in an expansive medallion. 

More than five feet in diameter 
the table is our desk, 
hosting homework at all hours, 
filling most of the room 
while pieces of coal 
seethe in the hearth 
making clinkers we will haul out 
and dump sizzling in snow. 

Mother reads to us 
around this table 
with a book propped 
on what looks like 
an ancient dolman. 
Blankets tossed over the wood 
double as a pirates’ cove. 
Our hands like lotus blossoms 
splay across the surface, 
reaching for game pieces strewn there 
on this everlasting round, 
our bagpipe hearts circumlucent 
like suns. 
Beneath on the four-legged 
heavy pedestal 
our twenty feet rest and crisscross. 

Round and around 
this wheel of life 
in the diurnal course of sun, 
morning and night we offer 
our circle of prayers, 
this ecliptic stump 
centering us, 
its diameter and circumference 
forever drawing us in.