We Put Out the Coffee

We Put Out the Coffee

(“Let’s not become discouraged in doing good, for in due time we will reap, if we do not become weary. Galatians 6:9)

The evening came wavering like a
toddling baby boy. We knew it was pending
and kept working anyway.
We saw how the moon grew as it rose from
behind the bare winter branches of a walnut tree.
We had been serving the survivors the
food they deserved.
We had been playing with their children
on the die-cut lawn and listened to their
laughter while the pizzas warmed in the
double ovens. We put out coffee,
we poured the lemonade,
we unstacked the dishes for the families
who stayed. We had counted on half as many,
we had planned to be home before nightfall.
But these were our friends, though many we had never met.
These were our family, though this was the first time we knew their names.

We understood each other,
they knew we would stay as long as the food held out.
We knew we could sit with the silence,
or we could sing as the meal began.
We washed dishes and then we put them out again
for the next friends in line and for the next ones after them.
We sweat as the ovens heated,
we laughed as the children raised their Styrofoam cups
like goblets making a toast.
It was always “cheers”; it was always just a moment’s
wink of a day.
Though we worked well into the evening, we only felt
the time was a fraction of what we had to give.
We knew the play, the conversation, the coffee,
the elastic answers to powdered questions; we knew
there was more to do and we would meet again,
we would meet again, like tonight.

We
memorized the conversations and
learned the vocabulary everyone needed.
We invited the foreign language to share our
chat around tables of perspiration, around
lampposts of contentment.
We learned more than we knew,
we listened happily and silent,
we gave food and attention to assuage
the starving. And we went home, weary and
grateful someone had invited us to work
that was rewarded with new names written
on our tongues.