Love for this New Year

a plate of words
a platter of persimmons

Tubers

& for the New Year -- food & words aplenty

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There is nothing 

singular about living

& there are textures 

in the air, in the soil

& in the words

in the foods 

we eat.

Gaia

She is everywhere.  She is in every thing, every word, every stem.  She is light.  She is dark. 

The beautiful otherwordly

A wild turkey is quite the sight.  A prehistoric head on a bounty of gorgeous feathers.  A cry to shatter silence for all time.  A ungainly dance.  No epics written inspired by turkeys.  Quite the meal, though.

Imagine

a city composed of persimmons.
How often I have imagined
a poem composed of persimmons.

Bliss

Inner thoughts

Winter Solstice week is a perfect time to consider the inner thoughts of thinking.  Buds are fine starting point.  Amaryllis, in particular.

Silence is the active intention for the next sentence. For the next meal to be assembled.  The candle lit.

Winter

a drift
of snow
on stem

how will you
describe
its fragrance?

how will
those words
inspire dinner?

From a plate of petals

 Don't forget the candle.  Never forget the light.  Without light, there is no dark. Bulbs need the dark.  Poems are the dance between light (paper) and dark (ink) and always, always inspire the meal.

Unlikely forest

What life force.  Unruly.  Uppity.
No longer a meal except to itself.
Can you feel the poem in the stem?

How to approach winter

with a vase
of water
inside & water-
falling on the outside
and because
this isn't real
mums & cypress
a pinecone &
because
this is California
eucalyptus
& because
last night
superb
miso, stirs
a sliver
of that familiar
moon
you could
leave
on your
sleeve
you could
recite
the breath
of light
to Chiyo-ni

The power of a single letter

Of course, I'm thinking of "a."  Adopt and adapt.  haiku, this gorgeous, precocious kitty came to live with me 11 years ago today.  Yup, adopt.  Regarding, adapt, see below.  The debonair and all-knowing Dumbledore and the talk of the jewelry world, Sweetie (note her signature pink heart).

The only thing sweeter to me

than a persimmon is a cat & a persimmon.  Intention carves reality and reality knows a good persimmon and a fine kitty.  By the way have you noticed how the seasonal is never singular? How a word rarely stays singular?  How a meal is made more savory by sharing a persimmon?

Vibrant

Who can resist a blooming succulent?   A bloom of vibrant red or yellow coming out of the unexpected.   Otherworldly and comforting as a cup of tea.  Nature is one interconnected art collaboration.
Let's remember to show up as an enthusiastic audience.  There is joy aplenty in witnessing such.

What the empty remembers

No vase if truly empty.

The same true of a dish.

There is no such thing as a blank page for at one time, the page knew words.

Small green flame

My grandmother insisted there was a small green flame in the center of everything that matters.  I feel that way about poetry.  I feel that way about a meal shared with friends.  Here's to the small green flame in all that matters.

Tulip star

Tulips are favorite flowers of mine.  I am always delighted & made shy by their sexy insides.  Meals should be like tulips.  And remember, a tulip, especially purple-hued, is pure poem.

Because I looked down

I came face-to-face with his magical green being.  For years I've waited at that green bench early Sunday morning to catch the #48 Bus for the uphill ride to Portola Drive.  Only this Sunday, did I see what has been at my feet.  This is why I love cities -- unexpected pleasures like a meal that tastes beyond expectation, like a poem that takes away and then gives back breath.  Now, what will I notice the next time I look up?  And to the artist of this magic -- thank you!

flower eyes

Yes, flowers have petals & stems & leaves.  They have eyes, too.  Just look into them.  And this is how tulip-eyes see a vase of themselves.  Tulips the color of persimmons with eyes which celebrate late autumn.  Note that downward (above) "broken tulip" -- an exquisite line break to a poem.

Advent

&

nestled in
and nestled
by community
succulents remind me
of cat & poem napping
while the preheating oven
awaits pumpkin
muffins.  Spices
break through
the cloudy morning

Soft eyes

Time liquifies.
I learned this
from my cat.

Cap, stalk and gill

among the mulch.  Beautiful and varied, the monochrome never bores.  Consider  26 over-used letters in our alphabet and yet, poems sprout up and sometimes, a frittata is served.

Hearing & seeing

It's been said there's nothing more satisfying that hearing a good story.
I say, there's nothing more rewarding that seeing a story.
Salads are like this, too.  Who doesn't love to see a vibrant salad?
Who doesn't love seeing a petite poem imbedded in a salad?
Who doesn't love hearing the poem in a drop of rain?
Who questions that a question is the perfect conveyance for hearing & seeing?

Spokes

A moment of time when its spokes are still.

When I'm silent, what moves within me?

When a tomato is being picked, what is it's center saying to the departing vine?

What does a blue umbrella think of a blue sky?  Or of wind rearranging leaves on the closest tree?

And will the next poem begin with heirloom tomatoes and a blue umbrella?  Wind, caught in time's spokes?

How does a bird see

what I'm seeing?
When she sings, does melody or lyric carry the song?
What meal does that bird imagine so close to the Day of All Souls.

The simple

is tricky.  Is hard.  Is soft.  Reminds you of that dream of petite trees, huge pinecones and poems in pockets. Reminds you of a frozen spinach dip from the 70's.

Blender

Time is a powerful blender.  Almost as powerful as dreaming. Imagines and words come to the foreground or blend into the background.  Much like a soup and the blending of tastes.

The umbrella

dreams of rain while I dream of persimmons.  While I dream of persimmons, snippets of words hang on crystal branches.  Words can submerge, can shatter.  Or words can hang and catch whatever time brings.

The persimmon contemplates color

and that which is contemplated
becomes real. Imagine a plate of colors.  Think palette.  Think palate.
All this, while eating a persimmon.

Continuous

is the old, is the new.  The waning, waxing.  Heirloom tomatoes from the farmers markets are certainly waning.  New growth on the pothos, waxing.  Such greening -- an intimacy like our California hills after the first rain. The living with a continuous thirst for water.

The eye of fall

I haven't been living in a Fall environment for decades.  Just 21 miles north west of San Francisco and now fall is evident.

 And here's what I imagine is the eye of fall:

What food and which line of a poem capture the dramatic falling of Fall?

Sideways

Wonder comes at you in any direction.
Toasted bagel with goat cheese, pepper & persimmon is perhaps a bit of a sideways breakfast.
Later a truly sideways poem written for a friend.