Name

Can you fully appreciate something without knowing its name?

Is this similiar to the tongue restless because the right spice has not been added to the dish?

Or the line in a poem breaking where it shouldn't?  Or not breaking?

Help, is she fruit?  And what is her name?

Unexpected

I didn't expect Muncie, Indiana to bring back thoughts of Hackettstown, NJ (my birthplace).

A late December sky.
Frost in morning.
Bare and beautiful trees.
Rushing water.

A litany of memories.

And here in sunny, warm San Francisco,
what will be for lunch?  Will it be warm
enough to sit on the balcony?

What lines will be written by 5 pm?

Hanging

out in the kitchen is as restorative as an arboretum, don't you think?

I bought the red wok because
it reminds me of the red wing
in a blackbird.

& the redwing black bird reminds me
of my friend Roz.

Poems, pots, redwing black birds
are all windows to the outside
from the inside.

& sometimes the title comes last --

RED WOK HANGING OUT WITH BIRDS

Glass

A mirror 

for the imagination

a vase for poems

light for the kitchen fire

Blur

and clear,
opposites

have a seat
in the kitchen
have a place
in the poem,
are central
to nature.
Perhaps, this
one of the many
attributes of
plants.

And what are you thinking of planting
in your next poem?  Accessible
or oblique, may the words be
ripe.

Ordinary

treasures
abound in the kitchen
as stars
come earthbound
which is to say
stars are practical
& oddly sometimes
porous & not always
where you expect
to find them
& as every cook knows
poems benefit
from a colander

Masks

Sometimes a mask is worth a thousand poems.  

Sometimes a meal is worth a thousand tongues.

Trio

Trio with elbow

wine & caramel 3-ways
& a candle, lit
a table is the space
of celebration
as paper for poem.
I'm thinking tables
like poems are never truly
impersonal.  Notice
in the upper left-hand corner,
the elbow of Ann.

Guess

what?

Raw & ready for shelling.  Fine to saute.

Green garbanzo beans.

Next to asparagus, the closest approximation of Spring.

Now, think of poetry.  Is there a shell that should be removed before tasting?

& what is it about glass plate or bowl which smittens the ripe?

Heel

And what of bread?

Bread makes me think of poetry and how a heel in a poem might be akin to a line break.

On your birthday, don't break a heel!

Thanks, Logan.

Thanks, Malisa.

Thanks, Gabriel.

Dyed

Ink, hair, and food have this one word in common.

Take a single beet.
Raw.  Dice into small jewels.
Saute in walnut oil with a shallot.
When cooked, add pitted black olives, walnuts.
Toss with cooked shells & cooked shrimp.
Top with fresh basil.  Pepper, of course.

Before you leave home, brush your hair.
Be sure the pen has plenty, ink.

Broken

Eggs are meant to be broken (or boiled) and then broken.

Lines in poems will in some measure, break.

Cups are meant to be whole; otherwise they cannot hold tea.

Alas.

And time, you ask. Time is a sum of fragments.  Ah, fragments such a gentle way of looking at the broken.