Table

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

1

I was never invited
to the table,
but had to sit outside.

I reached
for another–
whose lap
I crawled on,
whose branches
of trees
reached
out to me
with their arms.

2

Old Mother,
who heals
with the rushing
waters of spring,
the quiet white
of deep winter snows,
with the smell of leaves
breaking down
in the fall
and the bright moonlight
on warm summer nights,
Old Mother reached out to me.

3

I was never invited
to the table,
but had to sit outside,

and there
I found another
who
gathered animal spirits
beside me

on another path
in another world.