Empty

Strong morning light splashed wood with delicious afterimage. Early evening fog rolls in, the wooden fence is blank.  Blank, because I didn't look closely?

Is "blank" close to "empty?"  A blank sheet of paper; an empty plate?

I wonder what was erased when light  fled?

Is a bowl ever complete & empty?

I wonder what will be, breakfast?

Parse

before

during 

after

the three stages of any question

this time the question concerns parsing & Latin

how does a meal parse food 

& a poem, words?

Surely, veritas tires the cat as much as reading blink poems 

Please click on image before

Panorama

from a simple, rough-hewed bench, the city sweeps below.  I'm thinking if this is what a plate feels

when a salad is offered its lap?

And the poem, words?

Flapjacks

Not the usual breakfast.
By the way, pancakes aren't time-sensitive:  breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Did you know, there is a lobster flapjack?  Octopus flapjack?  Who knew.
I imagine maple & butter best for the pancake variety of flatjacks.  I imagine plapjack is the sound a poem makes when it wants the attention of the reader.  Do you agree?

Speaking

Please click on image

of conversation.  Words are flowers & candles at a table.  Both witness & honored guest celebrating the ripe. This chair is for you.   I hope you enjoy a salad of tomatoes & figs & feta & arugula & black olives & olive oil & pepper & fresh mint & almonds & a dash of balsalmic.  A conversation is a series of friendly and unexpected ampersands, don't you think.

Absolutely

connected

astract & concrete

Vase to flower   Shell to fish   Pen to paper   Cat to sleep   Lunch to market
Yes, there will be beets & blink poems aplenty

Feverfew

Find the chair but do not sit upon.
Notice the white flowers nestling there.
That's feverfew.  Medicinal.
But not culinary.  Of well,
the word itself is poem.
Makes for dandy cut-flowers.
Fascinating scent.
And, yes, that's a gigunda fennel in
foreground.  Now, look at the back
fence to the right and you'll spot
the orange cherry tomato plant.
A wooden halo is your clue.
Ancipation is all consuming.

Whorls

Who doesn't love spirals  -- vegetal or pasta?

Or, for that matter,  words which twist & spiral on a page or ear.  Or in the mouth.

Shell

I hadn't noticed the similarity between shells & salads.  Striation & layers.  Stories.  Unfoldings. Things unexpected.

That is, until this lunch.

Purslane with shell on the side

Persian cucumber
Lemon cucumber
Pitted black olives
Chioggia beets
Feta
Fresh mint
Olive oil
Black pepper
Fresh lime -- squeezed

And the purple leaf, you ask?
Agapanthus -- that word is a poem.

Abundance

Sometimes we name "things" for all sorts of reasons.
All sorts of good & generous reasons.
Should you ask, her name is abundance.
And may your next meal, your next conversation,
the next thing you read, the next thing you write
make you know you are  
abundant.

Waiting

Into the garden and waiting.  Truth to tell these are cherry tomatoes waiting to become orange jewels.  So, into the garden they go, with wooden support (much like a tree benefits from trunk) and the most precious of all -- water.  Mulch, too --  a combination of so much.

I'm thinking that a poem is much like this cherry tomato plant.  Waiting for dirt to deepen roots which are nourished by water & mulch.  Pen & ink & memory.

What's on the menu for July 4th?  Well, not these tomatoes.  But much to savor with friends across the Bay.

Gift

Sometimes --
just sometimes --
what you see
is what you hear
what you write
what you taste.

A simple evening walk home,
a gift -- spectacular & unwrapped.