Sharing

I have a history of sharing fruit with the kids in my neighborhood.  When I was kid.  In Jersey.  Mostly bananas.  Mostly apples.  To this day I love sharing fruit.  I try not being too agressive about foisting fuyu persimmons on acquaintences.  Although I am always pleased to the core when someone takes and eats and says thanks.  And in my heart-of-heart, that one would accept another fuyu.

And this, exacly,  how I write a poem.  And why.

Sunbeam

In four days haiku, the gorgeous and precocious kitty, turns a lovely 11.  He is napping upon a sunbeam.  I am thinking of soup because cooking makes a poem happen.  And cooking, as walking, is a celebration.  Is a poem.

Isn't

A home without a fruit bowl, isn't
A home without a book, isn't.
A home without pen & paper, isn't.
A heart without a voice is no home.

Pencils

My aunt Kit for whom I am nick-named gave me a set of pencils with my name engraved.  This gift is now 60 years in memory.  This is why I write.

A few years back, friend Susan gave me a set of pencils wrapped in paper imprinted with pomegrantes.  This is the conversation I continue to blog.  This is why the two of us enjoy a martini.

Today I will enjoy my 4th persimmon in two days as I contemplate peeling the small but mightly pomegranate in the fruit bowl.

From

From dirt & the confluence of weather & hope comes what feeds us.  I don't know how I know this (perhaps mostly from feeling) that it is the combination of dirt, weather, hope, and our bodies which produce poems of the ripe.  As you might imagine, I'm eating a persimmon (fuyu, of course) as I write this.  And I am imagining.  Later, I shall walk.

Enough

Can't get enough of the ripe & juicy.
Can't get enough of the ripe & the rooty.
Think of tubers.  As varied as the voices
of poetry.  As varied as the offerings
at a farmer's market.  Perhaps, this post
should be reposted, "Celebrate."

Happy

 
Happy is reading.  
Happy is writing.
Happy is ripeness.
Happy is walking and having language enter your body.
Happy is tasting the first fuyu persimmons of the season.  

Spoon

The Progression of Spoon

from hand
to pot
to lips
to mouth
to you
to your
back
as much
camera
as mirror
the pen
seeks
paper

Shells

Natural.  As in edamame.   Communal as in living.  Petite parcels of vegetal.

Reminds me of language.  A word is rarely singular.  Communal & circular.  Almost always vegetal.   

Consider, the ear as shell.   Yes, communal, rarely singular & often offers up parcels to the vegetal.  

Practice

I'm writing a non sequitur poem each day.   (Non sequitur from Latin, "it does not follow").  I call them affectionately my say-what-poems.  OK, an example:

Non Sequitur #2

Grandmother said,
"Do not confuse sauce-
pan with bowl.
Know the difference
basil from shiso.
Keep your knife
sharp & always
away from paper."

Cooking benefits from practice -- kinetic & meditative.

Frame

What frames a meal?  Is is spice?  Is it plate or bowl? Utensils?  Those gathered around a table?  What frames a poem?  For sure, sound.  Also, font & line break.  Both meal & poem are tangible.  Both tactile. Both benefit from an engaged audience.  And, yes, there is sound to a meal.
Crunch, nibble & laughter.

Concentrate

She settles her mind into thoughts of a fine meal.  When she reads her poem, she hopes the words are a concentrate of sound, pleasing & intriquing.  She has never rejected an intriquing meal.  Well, only if Durian is involved.