I've been reading and re-reading this poem for several weeks and decided it's time to post it. I realize that it's a repeating theme in my writing currently, but I am so happy to have a kitchen again. Many, if not most, things are unknotted by slicing, dicing and creating in the kitchen.
Tonight we gather
round a lamp-lit table
laying out words and hearts,
words and hearts that tell
a particular story about
our lives together and,
how tomorrow morning,
that story continues as it has
every other day this summer:
from dawn through dusk,
putting on our kitchen robes,
stirring awake the pulse of practice.
Isn’t it our delightful duty
to do such work, the cooking of life,
of our lives and all life so that both
the difficult and delightful
become digestible?
Mmmm…delicious…
I’m holding my finger
against my lips and there’s
no one around but us now and
I want to tell you a secret that everybody knows:
how the complications of the human heart are unknotted by
kneading bread, frying onions, cleaning sinks;
how our lives unfold into endless offering
and the wide world over cared for by
scrubbing carrots, paying attention,
by saying “yes.”
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Chris Lance, Austin Zen Center
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