A bare dining room table beckoned to be cloaked.
I set the ribboned packages discreetly beneath our skinny Christmas tree. I left behind the toddler clamor. I gathered the tablecloth and I ironed.
It felt good to set aside the blur of my holiday weeks to prepare our Christmas table.
Ironing is not a favorite pastime, by any measure of mine. How I wish my worries might disappear as easily as folds with the press of an iron.
I am learning to bear the wrinkles in my life, accepting that my cradled arms have room for joy and for frustration.
Despite mismatched chairs and china, imperfect timelines and traditions, we gathered. Our family, our friends, and our friends becoming family. And truly, that made our table and our hearts full.
Gather the Table
Gather the cloth. Press a warm iron.
Yesteryear’s worries unwrinkled in time.
Gather the platters, the glassware, the silver.
Polish and shine. Settings configured.
Gather the chairs. Festivity floats.
Gilded light. A table be-cloaked.
Gather the votives to sparkle the stars.
Blessed are the hands. Blessed are the scars.
Gather the faces, the young and the aging.
Tracing traditions, ever-reshaping.
Gather the prayers. Our circle widens.
Gather the table. A new year’s horizon.
©draft, Patricia J. Franz
December 27, 2023
It’s the last Poetry Friday of 2023!
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See you in the new year!
Patricia Franz writes picture books and poetry. She believes children, dogs, and sourdough have a lot to teach us about life, joy, and wonder. She has raised two boys, four dogs, and holds a master’s degree in Theology with a focus on children’s spirituality. Patricia, her husband, her Bernese Mountain dog, Bonny, and her sourdough starter split their time between the Arizona desert and the Sierra Nevada mountains. 
This is a beautiful tribute to the preparation and celebration that go into any of our holidays. Thank you!
Thank you, Carol! Happy New Year!
Oh, Patricia. Having just returned from family holidays, this poem really resonates. I’m going to send to my cousins if that’s ok!!
Thank you, Liz. Share away!
Such beautiful memories in your words, Patricia! May you and your family share happiness throughout 2024.
Just beautiful! I love that repetition that felt like a praise poem.
I just gathered some of these things, Patricia. I had Christmas at my daughter’s this year but my son and family are all gathering next week, so all that you wrote is in my future this time. I love the way your poem feels like a carol, one to sing in celebration. It is lovely! Happy New Year wishes to you and all who gather!
These seasonal preparations and rituals have been delicately woven into a metaphor for life, Patricia. I really enjoyed how you have done that. Learning to live with the wrinkles in our lives is a timely reminder.
Setting the table is also one of my great joys, and I do love ironing just for the reason you mention–that with relatively little effort I can turn a mass of wrinkles into smooth sailing for a crowd of people. Your Gather, Gather anaphora is lovely. Happy New Year, Patricia!
Patricia, this is beautiful. I love the “Gather” repetition and the near rhymes. And the open embrace of both the happy and sad. What a lovely way to wind down the year and welcome the new one. Happy New YEar!
Lovely to read aloud!
Hello wonderful Patricia of the exquisitely prepared Christmas table. Your untitled prose poem [ the intro] beautifully unwraps a gift of words as lilting & lifting as the couplet verses that follow. I can feel how your heart loved it that you followed that gentle nudge.
How wonderful to gather at this time, folks becoming family – another gift, with the usual sweet crew.
Happy New Year’s Weekend, too.
your fan,
jan
What a beautiful poem for the holidays! I am not an enthusiastic iron-er either, but if a poem like this results, I’ll have to find an ironing project! Bring on the wrinkles.
Patricia, I love this poem so much. The repetition of “gather” was so comforting. What a beautiful way to embrace the joys and the scars. Happy New Year!
Like Heidi, I like the refraining anaphora for “Gather the Table” too, it fits so well—Thanks Patricia and Happy New Year!
I’m with Jan — I love your introduction prose poem almost as much as your poem! But that repeated Gather, Gather is so lovely. Thank you for this generous meditation on love.
Patricia, what beauty in your Gathering poem. Like Mary Lee said, it truly is a “generous meditation on love.” It does sound like love around your table. The rhyming and pithy sentences in your poem are glorious.
Lovely poem! Ironing the table cloth you put to good use as a metaphor. Love how your table sparkles. I wish you joy in the New Year.