Thursday, February 5, 2009

Sanctuary in your Kitchen

This is the poem I would have shared in class today had I not been preoccupied with a family emergency (sorry!). SO! Here it is, I hope it's ok that it's one I wrote myself.


With the crackling sounds of grease on the frying pan
Watching the dew slowly vanish from the leaves outside the window

I think your hair has grown a shade whiter
Since I saw you last.

Your hands worn with the same cares and worries
And the blueberries in your pancakes just as sweet.

I sit on the same stool, its stuffing beginning to escape
the cushion seat.

My feet don't dangle off the ground as they used to,
But it's still my favorite spot.

Sometimes when you move around the kitchen
The mountain air catches your scent and carries it back to me.

You smell like Easter morning
Gentle and Holy.

As white as the eggs we decorated
Fragile and Strong, simultaneously.

You still ask the same questions
About school and boys.

I still answer in the same ways,
Rough around the edges and full of unnecessary detail

Just the way you like it.

I reach for my camera
To remember this.

The details of your apron, dusted with flour,
The red scarf in your hair.

You chuckle and protest at the click of the lens,
Trying to complain about the state of your clothes.

There,
I have you.

Forever recorded and remembered.

I run my fingertips over the ridges on the cutting board, remembering
When it was new

From many years ago
When I was more innocent

And these walls didn't whisper so much.

I try to make designs with the circles
Left by my tea cup on the yellowing counter top.

You approach with a steaming plate,
And say grace.

How sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.

1 comment:

  1. -- delicate detail, vivid, very moving. I hope there is no relaton between the subject of the poem and the emergency.

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