99

Perry.  99 Perry St. in the West Village.  I didn't grow up there, but I grew there. On the right is my friend Nina.  I'm on the left capturing memories.

It's not only food but photos and poems bring forth memories.  And, yes, precisely -- food.  Thinking of butterfish dipped in buttermilk and coasted with sesame seeds.  Sauted -- gently.

Back in SF, reading Broken Land, poems of Brooklyn which Nina gifted.

From a specific address to butterfish to poems about Brooklyn.  How?   Because friendship matters.

Thinking of Judy G and Ron.  Where are you?

Questions

I think we see what we want or need to see.  Perhaps, what needs to see us. Three kitties in a row in Manhattan each full of a question.

When are you coming home? Below, haiku is the maven of such a question.

And the next question, what's for a late breakfast? No doubt, a salad.  Because if a salad, there's sufficient color to prompt a poem.

Chairs

without people.

Contemplative pocket park at 53rd, NYC.  Loved this park when I worked at the Harper & Row buidling (gone) though I lamented all the people during lunch hour.

Nirvanna.  Here on a late Sunday afternoon on an otherwise sunny day, the perfectly beautiful grey of a city comes forth  (NYC or Paris?).   I saw what my mind-eye always did.  People-less beauty and yet footsteps & voices rush as waterfall.  Harmony.

And, yes, the lunch -- lovely Chinese eggplant & prawns (spelled pawns). A lunch with Bob,
Cin, and Karen.  Those chairs beautifully sat upon.

And, yes, overspilling with laughter.

Travel

Think of any place.  No doubt, it's food-specific for you.  For me NYC is bagel-land.  Bagels outside NYC and it's boroughs, aren't.  So, on a train from Grand Central to Croton-on-Hudson, there was this very edible bagel.  I ate it.  I accomplished much in each bite.  And soon there will be a poem or two.

Perhaps, my next salad will include sesame seeds.  Perhaps, not.  Happy noshing, travelers.

Fast

Breaking it, as in breakfast.  On the balcony with toasted baquette, a smear of goat cheese, and sauted fava leaves with garlic, walnuts & cooked golden beets.

Sun to appoint.

Reading to enliven.

And a poem, tucked inbetween the scrubjay's beak.

New Jersey

I am remembering the garden state -- corn and waiting for it to grow, knee-high by the 4th of July. Here, in the banana belt of San Francisco, I await the Russian kale to grow a bit higher.   Soon, very soon.

A salad, of course.  It's the poem to accompany which will be the surprise.

Meanwhile, the farmers markets are flush with fava leaves. Yes, leaves of the fava.

Barren

tree with a void of crow.  Lush ice plants.  Pond, vibrant with waterbirds, including an unseen great blue herron.  And sun to frame.  What the crow eats for dinner is chance & the fancy of wing.  I'll go for a salad and poem.  Decidedly about a crow.  The poem, that is. And you?

Coccinellidae

Photo by Ann F. Biderman

A day of good luck
with a gathering of
lady bugs. Eight on one bush. Here's a loner.

Such wonderful lucky parcels. Petite, portable poems on a
sunny day ripe for a picnic in Pacifica.

Geometry

Cut-off and a dance of light.  Curlicues & straight lines.  Take this geometry into the kitchen & create a salad -- texture & intention.  Your mouth anticipates.

When the meal satisfies, a poem buds.

Cow parsnip

From an otherworldly bulb, who could anticipae, crowning lace.  I love parsnips -- roasted.  Don't you.  I love Spring's myriad of green.  I think cow parnsips might be an American sonnet -- otherwordly.  

Inside

& outside.  Contrary.  Sometimes birds are best seen inside.  On the outside of water, but the water, accessible.

Sometimes tea is best sipped outside.

Poems like birds/like tea are best when both enjoyed inside & out.

Now, consider daffodils, poems & picnics.

And always, yellow.  Yes.

Nopales

hidden among the wild roses.  A 6' x 6" foot prickly pear
and this shiny & optimist nopales.  Not something I will
tackle to prepare although the fruit treasured.  I love the prickly
pear's otherworldly presence.  It's profound & biting sense of
boundary.

I grew up with wild roses & have fondness for that memory
& their first sweet smells of spring.

Here, wild roses & nopales make a keen friendship --
believable, and slightly not so.

And the next poem -- what unlikely combination?