recipe for soup
Open the door. Peer in. Push into the furthest edge.
Move aside what won’t mix well or overpower.
Find the remnants of what you’ve lost or simply forgotten. Dredge
up the slim stalk, the threadbare bunch, the nearly bitter, the almost sour.
Find an apt container. Think of what will hold it all, not just
the heart but the space around it. Turn up the heat - a fast boil - then
simmer. Step away. Do something else while everything coalesces, as it must.
You did what you could with what you had and it’s not a matter of what, but when.
In time, it will have made itself, found new life in what you'd thought was fallow.
Bend low. See how history’s brought you here. Taste the truth before you swallow.
~maya stein
As this poet/writer is the one who inspired the hulu hoop (by the by, Bogart freaks when it lights up the room with the disco flashes), it seemed right to share her poetry today.
That's a new penny? Huh.
ReplyDeleteI haven't handled much change yet. I found a whole bag of pounds, and put them away for Christmas, or March, or whenever we get back.
And speaking of "not just the heart, but the space around it..."
===============================
YOUR GRANDMOTHER’S WHISK
is not round but curves in a half-circle,
its wire hand flashing silver as I whip
my breakfast eggs into foam.
I curl my palm around the worn
wooden handle, smoothed to a soft
patina by her grip and yours, wondering
what ghosts linger even now in her
lost kitchen, waiting to be fed.
She had chickens, gathered fresh eggs
to break on the lip of some pottery bowl,
whisked them into buttermilk, flour, and
baking powder, maybe making a batter
for those blueberry pancakes you loved.
Perhaps she baked a cake to honor your birth,
my love, now more than seventy years ago.
Would I could whisk you both back into
my kitchen, offer you some still warm
scrambled eggs this winter dawn.
Copyright © 2012 Penny Harter
That's beautiful and worth framing & hanging up in my kitchen!
ReplyDelete