THE DINING ROOM

by: Zona Gale (1874-1938)

      LAID the blue dishes on the table.
      The dining room was still and sunny.
      Zinnias were in a brown basket,
      The grape-fruit plant was glossy in a window.
      Skilful fingers had wrought the border of the curtain.
      My grand-mother's blue pitcher was on the side-board.
      There were chestnut leaves in the brown rag.
      Barometer and thermometer recorded miracle on the rose wall.
      Dark wood paneled and beamed us in together.
       
      As I worked with these exquisite patient familiar things let me within.
      They let me look with their eyes, feel with their beating pulses of hurrying molecules.
      I perceived how locomotion and consciousness and self-consciousness have advanced us.
      By what means shall we go forward now?
      Does anyone wonder at my slow patience as I wonder at the slow patience of these exquisite and familiar things?

"The Dining Room" is reprinted from The Secret Way. Zona Gale. New York: Macmillan Co., 1921.

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