All this time,
the life you were
supposed to live
has been rising around you
like the walls of a house
designed with warm
harmonious lines.As if you had actually
planned it that way.As if you had
stacked up bricks
at random,
and built by mistake
a lucky star.“Lucky” by Kirsten Dierking from Northern Oracle. © Spout Press, 2007.
From the Writers Almanac February 23, 2017
The image is from NASA and captures the death of a star.
This poem reverses the idea that we eat to nourish the body and instead suggests we have a body in order to eat. I love the celebration of embodied sensual experience! I hope you do too 🙂
It has its attractions,
chiefly visual: all thoseshapes and lines, hunks
of color and light (the waythe gold light falls across
the lawn in early summer,the iridescent blue floating
on the lake at sunset),and being alive seems
to be a necessity if you wantto sit in the sun or rub your
toes in the sand at the beach.You need to be breathing
in order to eat paella anddrink sangria, and making love
is quite impossible withouta body, unless you are one
of those, given – like gold –
to spin in airy thinness forever.“The Idea of Living” by Joyce Sutphen from Modern Love & Other Myths. © Red Dragonfly Press, 2015.
From the Writer’s Almanac http://writersalmanac.org/page/4/
After an argument, my family always dined at the Chinese
restaurant. Something about the Orient washed the bitterness
away. Like a riverbank where you rest for awhile. The owner
bowed as we entered. The face of one who had seen too much.
A revolution. The torture of loved ones. Horrors he would never
reveal. His wife ushered us to our table. Her steps smaller than
ours. The younger daughter brought us tea. The older one took
our orders in perfect English. Each year her beauty was more
delicate than before. Sometimes we were the only customers
and they smiled from afar as we ate duck and shrimp with our
chopsticks. After dinner we sat in the comfort of their silence.
My brother told a joke. My mother folded a napkin into the shape
of a bird. My sister broke open our cookies and read our fortunes
aloud. As we left, my father always shook the old man’s hand.
“Chinese Restaurant” by David Shumate from The Floating Bridge. © University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008.
From the Writer’s Almanac http://writersalmanac.org/episodes/20170101/
I was going to write a poem
I made a pie instead it took
about the same amount of time
of course the pie was a final
draft a poem would have had some
distance to go days and weeks and
much crumpled paperthe pie already had a talking
tumbling audience among small
trucks and a fire engine on
the kitchen flooreverybody will like this pie
it will have apples and cranberries
dried apricots in it many friends
will say why in the world did you
make only onethis does not happen with poems
because of unreportable
sadnesses I decided to
settle this morning for a re-
sponsive eatership I do not
want to wait a week a year a
generation for the right
consumer to come along
“The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley from Begin Again. © Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000.
From the Writers Almanac http://writersalmanac.org/
Little flower, you live in constant danger:
Likely to be crushed under foot or torn by wind,
Sun-scorched or gobbled by a goat.These October days streaked with regrets and tears
Are like you, brindled flower, as they bloom
And fade, harried by heat as much as by the cold.Our ship sets out to sea, not with ivory or gold
In the hold, but with fragrant apples for cargo. Just so
My days are not heavy but delicate, fleeting and vain,Leaving behind the sweet, faint scent of renown
That quickly will vanish like the taste of fruit
Passing from the tongues and hearts of everyone.
from Writer’s Almanac http://writersalmanac.org/page/6/
The circus train made an ice cream stop
At the fifty-two-flavor ice cream stand.
The animals all got off the train
And walked right up to the ice cream man.
“I’ll take Vanilla,” yelled the gorilla.
“I’ll take Chocolate,” shouted the ocelot.
“I’ll take the Strawberry,” chirped the canary.
“Rocky Road,” croaked the toad.
“Lemon and Lime,” growled the lion.
Said the ice cream man, “‘Til I see a dime.
You’ll get no ice cream of mine.”
Then the animals snarled and screeched and growled
And whinnied and whimpered and hooted and howled
And gobbled up the whole ice cream stand,
All fifty-two flavors
(Fifty-three with Ice Cream Man).“Ice Cream Stop” by Shel Silverstein from Falling Up. © Harper Collins Publishers, 1996.
From the Writers Almanac: http://writersalmanac.org/
Image from: http://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/explore-the-delicious-history-of-ice-cream/
You know I had to post this! It connects the craft of cooking with contentment. May we all find a craft that helps us be so at home.
The first time my mother went out
to eat was on her 25th wedding anniversary
at Scordato’s in Paterson, and the second time
was for her 50th anniversary
at the Iron Kettle House in Wyckoff.My mother said, “I could have cooked
this meal better myself.”
But I knew she was happy,
though she would have never admitted it.Once my mother came to Paterson
from Italy in steerage,
she was content to stay there.
She was a brilliant cook,
and didn’t need to go to restaurants.
She loved her house, poor as it was,
and never stayed in a motel or took a vacation
or wanted to.She was content to offer platter after platter
of food to her family gathered
in her basement kitchen, and to watch them
laughing and talking together,
while she stood behind them
and smiled.“My Mother Was a Brilliant Cook” by Maria Mazziotti Gillian from What Blooms in Winter. © NYQ Books, 2016.
From the Writer’s Almanac
When I work outdoors all day, every day, as I do now, in the fall,
getting ready for winter, tearing up the garden, digging potatoes,
gathering the squash, cutting firewood, making kindling, repairing
bridges over the brook, clearing trails in the woods, doing the last of
the fall mowing, pruning apple trees, taking down the screens,
putting up the storm windows, banking the house—all these things,
as preparation for the coming cold…when I am every day all day all body and no mind, when I am
physically, wholly and completely, in this world with the birds,
the deer, the sky, the wind, the trees…when day after day I think of nothing but what the next chore is,
when I go from clearing woods roads, to sharpening a chain saw,
to changing the oil in a mower, to stacking wood, when I am
all body and no mind…when I am only here and now and nowhere else—then, and only
then, do I see the crippling power of mind, the curse of thought,
and I pause and wonder why I so seldom find
this shining moment in the now.
“This Shining Moment in the Now” by David Budbill from While We’ve Still Got Feet. © Copper Canyon Press, 2012.
From the Writers Almanac
This week I enjoyed cucumber sandwiches and tea with my friends on the screened in porch. It was an uncharacteristically civilized evening. I used thin Pepperidge Farm white bread, mandolin thin sliced and peeled fresh garden cucumbers, Kerrygold yellow butter, salt and white pepper. That is it. Super simple. Here is a food poem that makes me think of that not so long ago relaxing and fun evening. May we all enjoy the season of delicate cucumber and juicy red tomato sandwiches.
The high-tension spires spike the sky
beneath which boys bend
to pick from prickly vines
the deep-sopped fruit, the rind’s green
a green sunk
in green. They part the plants’ leaves,
reach into the nest,
and pull out mother, father, fat Uncle Phil.
The smaller yellow-green children stay,
for now. The fruit goes
in baskets by the side of the row,
every thirty feet or so. By these bushels
the boys get paid, in cash,
at day’s end, this summer
of the last days of the empire
that will become known as
the past, adios, then,
the ragged-edged beautiful blink.
from the Writer’s Almanac
This poem is a lovely reminder of the hidden magic of routine things taken for granted. It is an exercise of mindful awareness, of noticing the details with gratitude. May I experience such a miracle today and wishing you the same.
In June’s high light she stood at the sink
With a glass of wine,
And listened for the bobolink,
And crushed garlic in late sunshine.I watched her cooking, from my chair.
She pressed her lips
Together, reached for kitchenware,
And tasted sauce from her fingertips.“It’s ready now. Come on,” she said.
“You light the candle.”
We ate, and talked, and went to bed,
And slept. It was a miracle.“Summer Kitchen” by Donald Hall from The Selected Poems of Donald Hall.
From the Writer’s Almanac, June 22nd, 2016
The Hungry Philosopher 