The recipe,
that work of art,
bequeathed from bubbling
kitchen heart,
with stain and splot
of ancient dough,
bringing to Now
the Long-ago.
Penmanship of
floured hand,
preserved on paper
less than grand,
thus creating
choice giftwrap
of what was once
a lowly scrap.
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg,
and to Rose Schloot, owner of Cross River Lodge,
Grand Marais, Minnesota,
where this eloquent old piece of the past is displayed.
If I say I’ve known
a home that’s crowded,
the finches say
that’s highly doubted.
More thanks to photographer and finch landlord
S.W. Berg.
2019
2020
Yesterday I read a blog that asked if the reader has any gardening disappointments this year. Is he kidding? “Gardening” and “disappointment” go together like echinacea and Japanese beetles.
This is my third gardening season here; if you are a gardener, you know the third season is the beginning of seeing the garden as your own. For me, two distinct garden worlds: a bit shady in the front, a lot sunny in the back. Yes, Indiana clay and nasty root systems, exuberant invasives, malicious rabbits and chipmunks. But gradually mine.
Problems with a contractor have made it impossible for me to plant anything in the back this summer. All I have is a struggling collection of gangly seedlings with no place to grow. Empty tomato cages. No frilly yellow blossoms morphing into reds and golds. Not merely disappointment: it’s loss.
Gardeners survive the winter because they know a garden is coming, so when the garden fizzles the gardener kind of fizzles too. She might even let slip an imprecation. Maybe two.
Not everyone is a gardener, of course, but everyone has disappointments. And losses. It seems to me they are all felt more deeply this year because isolation is fertile ground for deep feelings.
So we cope, best we can, with emptiness where there should be life, and watch disappointment become loss, but we should never underestimate the toll it’s taking on us.
Yesterday I talked to a frozen slice of rye bread, a box of baking soda, and a toilet flush box.
That may not be a poem, but it’s the truth.
I seem to remember
when every grown-up
would sip something vile
from an everyday cup;
with cute little handle
and familiar old chip,
it was frequently clutched
in morning death grip.
I hadn’t yet learned
the elixir brew
was what made the sun rise
and enabled virtue.
But learn it I did
and in the meanwhile
the mug came along
in new sipping style.
Each mug a billboard
devoted to brevity,
graphics and text
mixing java with levity,
it warms our cold hands
not to mention our hearts,
so here’s to the mug
and the lift it imparts!
Lifting my mug this morning to you, dear reader,
with wishes for you and your loved ones:
may you be safe!
Saluting also photographer S.W. Berg
and coffee mug aficionado D.J. Berg!
Lusty thump
marks application,
with every stroke
fine syncopation,
wood on dough,
performance art,
percussive beat
of kitchen heart,
stretching, tugging,
this way, that,
persuading yeast
or flour and fat
to peasant noodle,
earthy, chewy,
or frail cream puff,
flaky, gooey.
In maestro’s hands
a nimble trill,
here on the wall
lumpish, still.
But regard with respect
the two-handled bole:
even inert
it’s ready to roll.
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg
and to la Madeleine, Fairfax County, VA.
Spring is imminent
I have the certain feeling:
behold the season’s first
spider on the ceiling.
(Ick.)
Sunrise in the kitchen
its gold eye warm
through blue-white froth
of last night’s storm
rousing the patter
of wiggly-toed feet
noses to windows
day’s quickened heartbeat.
The road to here
from distant there
is mapped as
greasy thoroughfare.
‘Mid stain and splotch,
old gizzard drip,
evolution in
encrypted scrip.
Notes to self
in mishmashed order
chase themselves
around the border,
not merely scrap,
timepiece instead,
the years piled up
like cubes of bread.
From my neatnik Mom
through freeform me
the family stuffing
legacy,
preserved in splat
of butter, sage,
for, I hope,
another age.
There was nothing like it: the smell on Thanksgiving morning. No, not coffee and bacon. Onion and celery and butter! Smells to float on. Dad would go to Mass and some years I went with him, but usually I stayed home to help. OK, so it should be “help.” I was very good at putting things away just before they were needed, and I was very good at reminding my mother how I disliked pumpkin pie. What a model child I was!
I hope your Thanksgiving memories are good ones, dear reader, and that, amid the bleakness of our times, we can give thanks for the things and people we know to be true and good.
I thank all of you who have stopped by my blog and left an encouraging word or like. Writing is ever on the edge of not-writing, and your kindnesses have kept me going many times.
A very happy Thanksgiving to you, dear reader!
If there is travel, may you and yours come and go in safety.
Apple walnut cinnamon pie,
winter oven, my, oh, my.
Syrup’d slices, cinnamon dust
rise through nose to memory’s must:
oilclothed table, rolling pin,
floured apron, floor and chin,
pigtail peelings, glowing stove,
maybe nutmeg, maybe clove.
Coming in from bitter world,
boots well stomped and scarf unfurled,
amber warmth starts deep within
like radiator through my skin.
Kitchens of the long-ago,
swathed in early evening snow,
hug me still because I spy
apple walnut cinnamon pie.
Huzzahs and thanks to photographer S.W. Berg,
and kudos to dessert chefs at McCormick and Schmick’s, Virginia Beach, VA.
What memoried fragrance arises from this photo!
As this hectic season hurls us into next year,
I wish you, dear reader,
some sanity from a warm and spicy kitchen.
