The Silent Jukebox

The Silent Jukebox

(“That man never thought of being kind; he persecuted and killed the poor, the needy, and the helpless.” Psalm 109:16)

The jukebox no longer played tunes
for a dime, for a quarter, for a dollar.
It was crying at the violence and the music
was left out in the rain.
We stopped listening to the words a
long time ago.

There were too many who
refused
to be soothed and
the moments passed without a single
rose breaking the mood the weeds had strewn
across the table.

No one knew why the music no longer played,
cigar smoke broke the air gray and blue. The
booth for
two
no longer was occupied. There were rips in
the cushions,
there was a disturbance in time. One came
early, one arrived late, they used to dine
together, now they were separate ghosts.
Coffee winced down their throats at opposing
sides of the day.

There was no way to explain how the diner became
so thick with the heartbreak that cracked the days
with silence. Some would blame, some would
write computer code,
some would pray,
some would divide it all into rows and columns.
But the soul

Needed something more than pop songs to
right the wrongs. On the other side of town
no one knew that coffee was poured here without
a sound.

At the Table

At the Table

(“And he said to me, ‘This is the table that is before the Lord.’” Ezekiel 41:22b)

The restaurant was darker than most, the walls splayed with
lights of neon green. The large booth received us well, our family
that dines together and fills the air around us with high notes
of merriment,
low notes
of secrets,
intervals of silence between an almost-forgotten joke
and the beginnings of laughter (the respectful kind
that knows a father’s punchline well before he gets there.)

Before the food ever arrives the server greets our little tribe,
and we would feed her too if she didn’t have other things to do.
Philippine Paella family style is the majority vote and
the food arrives before the royal princess can finish
her third story about her best friend and learning Mandarin,
and cousins and the new dog that owns the home.
She carries the conversation at six and nearly seven;
theater and spotlight runs deeply in her veins.

Once a year our scattered family tries to meet; the
hug is Minneapolis with Dallas, Chicago, Baltimore,
California and the Pacific Northwest the remote abodes
strewn across the continent.

We fish our favorites out of the giant pan before us,
sweet mussels and sea salt clams, luxuriant crab and
salacious shrimp, along with sausage, fragrant and spice.
All of it resting upon rice turned playful in the saffron sauce.

Food needs a table, meals need a family; we never remember
the quick peanut butter sandwich at home for lunch or
the leftover meatloaf spread across competing rooms for dinner.
One does homework, another reads, and others watch Jeopardy
with memories barely jarred.

Lord, Your table is spread, made ready for our hunger. We need
so much more
than we ask for or order.
So teach us to remain long after the check has arrived,
help us remember the clatter of kitchen sounds
every time we find ourselves eating and drinking
together

At the Table of the Lord.