This table by the window where I write

and eat and watch the birds and squirrels

and pile my notebooks on and search

the internet and sit with friends

who stop by for a chat and tea,

its surface, once worn and stained,

I sanded and refinished the other day,

revived its youthful look, brought

back its maple color, the one it had

when I found it in a secondhand store

so many years ago sitting in a corner

with old lamps and think of how

my kids grew up around it as we moved

from place to place before I

brought it here to live with me,

its surface like a servant, silent

and unassuming but always dependable--

uncomplaining and indifferent to what I eat

or write or say or what is happening

in the world or what the weather brings

across the skies past these windows and this room

where it lives its stoic life,

while I sit and think that I can

somehow make the world a better place

with these words I scratch and pile

into another book that someone, somewhere

might read and never know about

this table by this window where I sit

each day, rarely thinking of its usefulness,

except for now, leaning on my elbow,

grateful to be sitting here another day.