Come, Sit With Me At My Table Poem by Raj Arumugam

It is about morning and you see me outside. Say at ten-thirty. You see me at the coffee-shop. An espresso or a flat-white is what I'm having.

I don't eat much; I don't take more than I need.

Say a flat-white and a toast – just one slice will do me.

OK, so you see me sitting at the coffee-shop. Be natural. Just come in; sit with me at my table.

It's usually in the morning when you see me outside. Rarely at night.
No, I don't fear the dark; it's just that my systems start shutting down from 7 pm. They go for quiet and contemplation, and then deep sleep after. That's just the way it is with me. But when you see me at the coffee-shop, and if you have the time, come sit with me at my table.



Everyone's welcome. No one's out. The poor and the rich; the literate and the illiterate; the coherent and incoherent; the loud and the quiet; the uncouth and the refined - you are welcome to my table. Come, sit with me at my table.

So you're black or white; you're Nigerian, Chinese or Jew; you're Indian or Sudanese or Laotian; you're Pakistani or you're Russian or Vietnamese; just come sit with me at my table. So you're fat or thin, or somewhere in between, come and sit at the table.


So you're one hell of an upper class guy and you think you're God's gift to earth, or you're so down you think you're the rubbish that gathers in the city dumps; and poet and plagiarist and some as original as Michelangelo; singer and the lyricist and butcher and painter, and barber and teacher and the student, and the professor and the failed undergraduate; ten years old and a hundred and ten; come all of you; do not be shy, come sit with me at the table. You are all the same to me; everyone equal and I no less or greater than any. You may the Highest Authority in your establishment; you may be the Mightiest in your land. Just the same. All of us.



Or you may define yourself by your religion, it doesn't matter to me. So if you see me sitting there at the coffee-shop, come sit with me. Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Daoist, and Buddhist; Sikh, New Age people, nature worshiper, worshiper of the Goddess, or whatever you call yourself or whatever others may call you; Zoroastrian, Jehovah's Witnesses, Sufi and Amish and Pagans; however you describe yourself or however others describe you, come sit with me at the table. And the atheists too; those who have no faith and those who have lost faith.


It is about morning and you see me outside. Say at ten-thirty. You see me at the coffee-shop. An espresso or a flat-white is what I'm having.

I don't eat much; I don't take more than I need.

Say a flat-white and a toast – just one slice will do me.

So you see me sitting at the coffee-shop. Just come in; sit with me at my table.

Or maybe others define you by your morals and perceived goodness – or lack of morals and lack of perceived goodness. Come. Oh you that have broken the law, and you that observe the law, and you that enforce the law and you that make the law; Oh you that serve a million selflessly and you that seek to eke out your living so your family can live, all are the same to me - so come and sit with me at my table. You that believe in hierarchy and you that have no respect for hierarchy and rank and position and power and seniority; you that are anarchist and you that seek order even in your nails and every hair on your body; all are welcome at my table. Come, prophets and messiahs and visionaries and mystics and harlots and prostitutes. Come, sinner and the pure and the holy; come, those saved and those damned; those going to hell and those going to heaven and those going nowhere; come the honest, the upright and the morally superior and the dishonest, and the morally depraved – and the philanderers and the lechers and the perverts.


Or maybe you define yourself by your power and influence; or lack of power and influence: it is all the same to me. Come and sit with me: you can be God, or you can be the Devil; come sit with me – the love of all humanity that has been there; the love of all life that has been there, yes, that unconditional love can and will bind and quieten both of you at my table. For I bring unto both of you, to all of you, innocent love as the child brings; and for that love is complete, for that love is all-inclusive, there is no power before that.


Leave aside what others think of you, and come sit with me at my table.

Leave aside what you think of yourself, and come sit with me at my table.

Beggar, king and emperor, come and sit with me; Prime Minister and President and housewife or home-maker and Minister, and those who clean the offices of those in high positions, for once at least, come sit with me at the same table; people who serve and those who are served; the proud and arrogant and the simple and anonymous, and the forgotten and the humble and the meek, come sit with me.




My name?

I go by many.

Some call me Unconditional Love.

Some call me Time. Some call me God.

Some call me Death.

Some call me Profane; some call me Divine.

By the way, my apologies if I left out anyone in my list; you're always in my view, so don't feel neglected or forgotten. Now as I was saying, I'm known by many names.

You want to suggest a name?

It's all the same to me. As if I cared what you call me.