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They're kindly here, to let us linger so late,
Long after the shutters are up.
A waiter glides from the kitchen with a plate
Of stew, or some thick soup,
And settles himself at the next table but one.
We know, you and I, that it's over,
That something or other has come between
Us, whatever we are, or were.
The waiter swabs his plate with bread
And drains what's left of his wine,
Then rearranges, one by one,
The knife, the fork, the spoon, the napkin,
The table itself, the chair he's simply borrowed,
And smiles, and bows to his own absence.
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Copyright © 2003-2008 Gunnar Bengtsson, Poetry Connection. All Rights Reserved.
Holy Thursday itself is the beginning of the Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday/Easter). It is the day we remember that, during the Last Supper, Jesus took bread and wine and left us a memorial of his passion and death, and the hope of life after death.
The couple in the poem are having their own "Last Supper" just as the waiter in the poem has his meal. He uses bread to clean the plate and drains his glass of wine, then rearranges everything as it was. But the meal, like the relationship, is over; things will not be the same again. The shutters are up as the restaurant ends its business day and the waiter, after finishing his supper, bows to his "absenece", as if he has shared this meal with someone other than himself.
Perhaps the couiple in the poem have lost sight of the reality of God in their lives, that there is another who was always present in the relationship yet was never acknowledged. And, as Holy Thursday led eventually to Easter Sunday, so perhaps, as this relationship ends, there is the hope of a resurrected one later on
Tom Cloutier from United States