Poetry Friday: Something There Is That Loves A Fence

Poetry never seems to really leave me alone, not that I am asking it to...but I don't exactly beg it to stay either. I haven't written a Poetry Friday post for some time and yet when I planned today that I would join in again and post something up I had about four or five ideas for poems come zinging into my consciousness. I would never self-identify as a poet but I do love a good poem and I seem to have a lot of poems rattling around in me trying to get out.

Poetry Friday is being hosted today by Poetry For Children and I am thrilled to join in again! Check out the other contributions. Happy Summer!

Today I am sharing a poem about our California backyard. This is our first yard with a genuine privacy fence and I have to say that I love it, the privacy and the peeking over and through it to talk to the neighbors. Its amazing how much I think of Frost's poem and chuckle.

Privacy Fence
I walk the high board fence between our yards
Escorting the black hose the length of the flower bed
Hissing fallen petals, shed leaves and dust ahead of us.
Your glory vine is pushing fingers through the planks,
Spying at my boys as they lounge in the hammock
My leadwort is getting positively coquettish,
Throwing its sky blue tresses clear over the wall.
In your direction.
Neither of us mind.
You peek at me through the slits in the boards grinning
Passing bags of Cambodian shrimp chips over to us
Or dropping candy bars to my jazzed 6 year old
I bow and wave and wish you a good day
Sometimes sending over a bouquet of mint
Or a few choice stems of rose blossom
And over us, your banana cluster ripens benevolently
While my passiflora vine tenderly creeps up
Into the arms of your apple tree.

Words On The Platter

     Sometimes, in order to get going again we have to push the ball down the hill in some small way. I have been long fallow here and now I'm back and grinding away like Sisyphus but in an attempt to help things take on their own momentum and joy, I'm just going light. This is my little kick off the edge.....here I am, with my pen in my hand again.

Lets just marinate in some goods words, shall we? It seems like a good way to begin. Here are some of my own, personal favorites. Which ones did I miss that you love the sound or feel of?

Utterly Enjoyable Autumn Words

Decidious

Scythe

Persimmon

Harvest

Cornucopia

Shadow

Cider

Sheaves

Snuggle

Golden

Quilt

September

Russet

Blaze

Fog

Rusted

Flannel

Crimson

Chanterelle

Meander

Crackling

Maple

Smoke

Squash

Harvest

Spider

Candle

Crisp

Aspen

Marigold

Hazel

Scarlet

 

And then, just because delicious words make me think of poetry, in a When You Give A Moose A Muffin Style....lets have a classic poem by James Whitcomb Riley. I like to imagine my farming great-grandpa, suddenly possessed of a desire to write poems speaking out these lines while he stumps along from orchard to barnyard to his masonry trimmed farmhouse where I was this summer. I miss him and I wish he could know my little boys and that I could marinade in his comforting presence and imagine they will turn out sturdy and reliable and warm, like him.

When the Frost is on the Punkin

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,

And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,

And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,

And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;

O, it’s then’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,

With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,

As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere

When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here—

Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees.... (click here for the rest) 

 

Poetry Friday: A Piece About Perspective

Happy Poetry Friday! Its been a long time since I participated but I'm back in the saddle, summer fueling my creative side. Today is the day I share an original poem, hopefully one I made up just today and join in with other poets and poetry lovers to share our work and the work of those we admire. Today our host for Poetry Friday is Mitchell Linda over at A Word Edgewise. Go take your morning cup of coffee over tomorrow and glide through all the stacks of wonderful poems. Such a great way to open your mind for the weekend and to take it all out and shake out the wrinkles before a new week begins. 

This week I am sharing a poem that was begotten via a poetry prompt from our hostess. Thank you so much for the beautiful first line, Mitchell Linda... This took me happy places. I was thinking of the very common scene in my backyard with my four little boys playing together and losing things together over the garage roof or over the fence to the neighboring yards. Lots of great images and meaning layers there if we look at even the simple and mundane scenes in our lives.  

Above Ground

"Don’t worry—there are ladders."
He told his little brother after they
Sailed a balsa glider quite out of reach
Onto the garage roof.  

He was just deflating, melting into a
Puddle of heartbreak on the sidewalk,
his kindergarten joy sailing out of reach
Onto the garage roof. 

His big brother lifted his chin with a finger,
And gave a wink towards the rungs
And pulled his hopes upright again
Onto the garage roof. 

How many times I could have rallied
If I could only learn to look up myself.
Remembering that there are ladders
Onto the garage roof.

Poetry Friday: A Moving Tribute

Happy Poetry Friday! I have a poem this week, digesting a bit more about my move to The West Coast from The East Coast.

Its been about 2,000 years since I had a good poetic wander. Feels so good to get back to my principles and be stepping back into a rhythmn of creation and personal, reflective thought. Love writing poetry.

Poetry Friday is a product of KidLitosphere and is a chance to share and mingle together suggestions, original work and sometimes even whole books that feed that poetry section of our brains, help us to think in lyrical form and assist in giving us imagery that is crisp and reflective of experience.

I try to write an original poem once a week to participate, pushing myself to try new ideas and to capture in verse the impressions that slam or waltz through my mind. See the tab above for a collection of all the poems I've spun out thus far here.

Poetry Friday is one of my favorite things to consume on a lazy Saturday or Sunday morning. A mug of tea and the host list of links is great early morning brain food to help your inner self uncurl and blink awake. So, incredibly cozy. Try it out.

Our host blog this week is Poetry For Children. Click through and enjoy all the offerings!




New To California

I am camping in a house with a blow-up mattress, four boys and a sea of pale gray carpet.

I wonder what dark January looks like with prickly pear ripening on the side of the freeway and mariachi on the radio.

I hear basketball echoes in the back courtyard, the neighbor kids shouting in Spanish and the gentle hum of the refrigerator in our tiled kitchen.

I see the golden sunlight slanting through the office blinds and the sly Dirt Devil doing the tango along the living room wall.

I want new girlfriends,
luscious, ridiculous ladies
laughing in a circle around me,
arms skyward
bellies full.

I am camping in a house with a blow-up mattress, four boys and a sea of pale gray carpet.

I pretend that I will become a willowy, silver-haired chef in a teeny seafood cafe with open geranium windows.

I feel elastic,
spicy,
full of the buzz of the shift and the high of spontaneous, aromatic creation.

I touch the soft
inner bellies of scallops and the stringy stems of thyme
beaded with tiny, rough leaflets.

I worry about drug culture, pot heads and psychedelic mushrooms eroding personal drive.

I ask the world, if I wasn't scared what would I do Out West, in this new life.

I am camping in a house with a blow-up mattress, four boys and a sea of pale gray carpet.

I understand that the bright, blue of the sky, over the gold hills is an illusion of light scattering selectively.

I believe that avocados are verdant medicine and fall from their trees on cords like gifts being lowered to us.

I dream of playing that fiddle that is in a box, on a truck, on the highway and
making it sing past the beginner tunes I learned in high school, 
revving on into huapango, zydeco and bluegrass.

I trust that all things are a lesson, that nothing is without use and that God is filled with compassion.

I hope for rain this winter
green hills and a season of growth.
I am camping in a house with a blow-up mattress, four boys and a sea of pale gray carpet.

Poetry Friday: One For Therapy

Dear World,

Its Poetry Friday. The weekend can begin now. A little balm for the soul, a little meaning for the road, a little dose of wisdom coated with deep noticing for what ails you. Lets have a poem.

A Poem For Hard Times

Poems are where your sobs come out in
Pointy, adverb strings, all the clauses sticking
Together like mucus or stress or a migraine the size of Canada.
We can click or scribble the physicality of
Our upset, the ocean liner size of it all
Honking out our lumbering pain, rhythmic (or not)
We can write stories we never owned that tell the
Fizzing, splattering, drippingintheicecolddark feelings that we live.
Poems can be canvasses for smearing our bright
Progress...the passage from a thick, globby raw umber
To a smeared gloss of cerulean blue in the far corner.
We can have poems that are for chewing on,
Instead of gnawing holes in our childhood loveys
Between our bone grinding sobs.
Poems can be there. They can hack it.
Poems don't blush or tell, or give a damn.
A light drift of verse can also be a rope out of the pit.
When you have cried yourself to sleep and wake up
Hollow, rasping in your shell
A poem can wink at you and kiss your hand
Pulling you upright, into the world and yourself.
And then it will lie there, after you have dressed,
Gleaming on your pillow while you make it into your bed
Waiting for you between your sheets and the quilt.
.

You can find other contributors at Live Your Poem, where Irene Latham is hosting this week's jamboree. Have a mug of tea, sit in silence and contemplate your own breath, read a  poem for each down beat of you heart and then have Saturday. Happy Weekend, Friends. May there always be poems in our brains....

Poetry Friday: A Poem For A Weed

Today a poem about dandelions. Its high dandelion season here at our house, all the roadsides and wilder lawns dotted with yellow and the air heavy with their sweet nectar scent.

 Weeds are in the eye of the beholder. I've never lived in a house with a manicured lawn so anything that flowered was allowed and maybe even encouraged. All things have their place, especially in a wilder kind of horticulture.

Dandelions are an exotic, invasive but they have taken hold in the hearts of all children. Who doesn't have heartwarming memories of playing with them as little tikes? I love watching my boys play with them and I wonder if my sisters think of me like I think of them when I see them start to bloom every spring.

So, Lockbox, Foxy, Song, and Doubleddog.....here's to the sisterhood! This one's for you.


Dandelion Season

As a girl I loved the scent of dandelions
A warm smell of sunshine in honey sauce.
Sniffing the blossoms was a kind of food
To my sisters and myself, a conjuror's dessert
We played that the milky sap was Elmer's 
Our fingers tacky from the bitter, gloss.
We tore open innumerable flowers,
Beads of white swelling from the stems
We would squat in the sand on the driveway
And squint our eyes fiercely at each other
Smearing the flowers across our cheeks,
Leaving pale yellow racing strips behind.
We braided the stems into crowns to wear
And learned that dandelion stems are variable
Sometimes stiff and no longer than your thumb
Sometimes long and willowy and braid-able on and on
Around the head until your crown grows fat.
One time I left my diadem on the dashboard
Of our car and found the next day that magically
It had turned into a delicate, brittle circlet
Of wishing puffs....

Poetry Friday: Re-creating My Grandparents

Happy Poetry Friday, everyone!

Today's poem is all about my maternal grandparents: Grandpa Mac and Grandma Sallie. I am one of those past-pickers who loves to marinate in the stories, details and even dates of my ancestors. I have drawn up family trees and dug around in the great, stale stores of The Internet for immigration records and am always pressing relatives for little stories and anecdotes. I think one of the key reasons why I am so fixated is because I long for a sense of connection of human understanding, of familial community that stretches deeper and farther than my varied cousins and my several aunts. I want to know what "we" as a clan were like in the Great Depression, how we cook, how we were in The Old Country, how we hold our liquor, how we walk, how we all tell jokes and what kinds of things we do in times of stress. I wish I could interview all my ancestors but instead I am writing a poem for them and for myself. 

My grandpa, the year the stock market crashed, 1929.

My grandma as a young woman with her first child, my aunt Nancy.

My Roots Are Showing

Odd how I run my fingers over and over
The many strands of my family roots,
Harping, my husband calls it when I go on.
I especially think about my grandparents:
I know I am lucky to have hugged them,
Had their wrinkled hands stroke mine
And to have felt their hair with sleepy fingers
But I know my versions of them are pale
Flickering, silhouettes sketches of people.
I remember old snatches of my grandpa:
Rag wool sweaters, pipe tobacco and his back
Bent in the sun over the stone garden wall.
Grandma is the scent of geraniums, solitaire
And glasses of water with crossword puzzles, 
A chic tip to her head, her feet curved and shuffling
I have these little torn, scavenged memories
And I have fashioned them into frozen collages
The two of them, stiff and quirky: static human art.
I know they gasped along like I do, their lives
As thumping and real as mine and my husband's
But sometimes I have to write to really feel them,
Cracking open the trunk of words in my mind
To enliven them, breathing in their realities
How it truly felt...in the bones, to have:
A cascade of preemie daughters, a house-fire,
A war hero ghost for a brother, an ex-wife,
An explosive temper, a yen for pink pistachios,
A college crush, a wry joke over gin,  a first art sale,
A master's degree, a quiet breakfast in Paris,
A job in another state, an absent spouse, a broken nose,
An alcoholic father, a museum you helped found,
A fear of gaining weight, A obsession with saving bags,
Or a commitment that sticks there through it all
Stubborn and eternal and lumpy like all real things.

My grandparents are the elegant couple on the left, my aunt and uncle on the right.

 You can go browse the other submissions for Poetry Friday tonight as a celebration of the weekend or tomorrow morning (like I will) with a mug of tea in hand. There is always a huge buffet of delicious offerings to pick through. Trudy is hosting this week over at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

Happy Weekend!
xoxo

Poetry Friday: Marriage Advice for Myself

Happy Poetry Friday everyone!

I am writing today about a personal journey I'm having at the moment. I chose a theme word for this year to help me focus my thoughts and ideas and efforts. This is the year of "Acceptance" for me. I'm working more to accept the circumstances I am handed, to accept the problems that I am facing, to accept the people who have been put in my life, to accept myself and my flaws, to accept the good I'm given and the help and creativity and hope around me.

One of the biggest areas I'm really flexing the acceptance muscle is in my marriage. Its so easy to decide that the person we are with needs to change all of their problems, to distance ourselves from them and find ways to differentiate instead of unify, and even to wish away for refuse to acknowledge some of the truth of the current state. I'm on a quest to go to a different place: a knowing and a seeing that is not resignation but just awareness and honesty with overtones of oneness and deep compassion for him and for myself.

And then I made a poem.


If I Were Wise

If I were a wise woman
I would allow my husband to just be.
I'd let him care obsessively about
The exact time he goes to bed and the
The turning off of lights in empty rooms.
I would let him rage about slow traffic
And children who forget to put their shoes on.
I would listen to his worries about the
Dangers of caffeine and alcohol and liberals
And understand it all as his honest now.
I would live like a great warm radiator at his side,
Walking my own path and letting go of his.
I would see myself winking from his mirrored-skin
And hear his voice ripple in my exultant shout
Below the great cement arches of an over-pass. 

Go to Violet's blog this week to see all the other contributors to Poetry Friday today and read a cozy bunch of verse.

Poetry Friday: Winter Cherry Cinquain

Happy Poetry Friday! I am sharing a cinqain today, a shorter form but kind of fun for its simplicity and compact succinctness. Yesterday the boys and  I pulled over because I spotted the first blooms of tiny, flowers on the dormant looking branches of a Prunus subhirtella, the winter cherry. It was bitter cold so the boys all stayed bundled in the car while I braved the frosty air, breathing smoky clouds of breath on the branches in the sunlight. I took one tiny blossom into the car and let my four year old hold the tiny bloom up to his eye, examining the minute gold stamens with a smile. This is all in December, in New England...in below freezing temperatures, mind you.

 Last year I noticed the little blossoms in February by chance and went dashing home all full of global warming sadness and googled to see if other people in my area were seeing cherry trees bloom far, far too early.  Instead I met this particular species of cherry and found out that it was happily doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing....blooming "sporadically from autumn until spring." There is a whole row of them there, standing side by side all along the parking lot. This year, knowing they are there now the boys and I will keep enjoying the gradual, gentle show. I do love an unexpected pleasure. 

Winter Sakura

I find
Pale, petals
Fluttering in the chill park
December-time cherry blossoms.
Rosy snow. 

 Alison is hosting Poetry Friday round-up today over on her blog Robin Hood Black. Take a lazy, meander through the offerings and enjoy a little poetry with your Saturday morning tea. I am hoping to get a chance myself, mug in hand, baby on my knee....

Poetry Friday: A Vacation Memoir

Happy Poetry Friday everyone!!!! Its been ages since I wrote a poem. My poety self disappeared for a bit there under knee x-rays and layers of homeschool curricula. Am back and am not to be beaten down. Feeling very inspired by all the determined women who made office during the recent election. If they can all manage to accomplish political careers and break glass ceilings then I will battle to squeak out a poem on Fridays. Huzzah!

This week I am thinking of our recent trip to Hawaii. We spent some time visiting A's brother Miq and his wife, the inimitable  Penny (visiting family is a good excuse for trips to exotic locales!) and then we also took half the vacation to island hop about on our own and explore. We came to Hawaii for our honeymoon ten years ago so we were returning after a decade to not only enjoy the tropical breeze but also to remember where we started and celebrate having made it this far, back in a kind of grand circle. It was kind of a family vacation/second honeymoon/relative visiting trip...just a little of everything in there.

It was fun to go back as a painter. I feel like it changes the way I see so much of life...I notice amazing colors, the way light glows along an edge, and the soft quality of the air in a vista. One of things that really has stayed in my mind was the fruit. Its a beautifully agricultural and lush place so there's no shortage of ripe, juicy, glistening fruits everywhere. The fruits we have here are equally lovely really, there's just something very fresh about things you don't have where you live. This is what I am remembering now as the weather crisps and blusters outside our house and December looms large.

A Ripe Visit 

Staying in their teak, jungle bungalow
Was beautiful, like the breakfast papaya:
Glistening crescents of spoon-soft gold;
Florals melting into the walls of your mouth. 
They smiled easily and shared their croquet set,
The balls rolling into a dip under the banana tree.
Life there was warm and soft, rippling onward.
We stripped magenta ramubutans slowly and read
Languid stories to the children about dragon gold.
I got up one morning with the roosters and
Watched dawn rise over corrugated metal to the
Nutty snap of a longan skin between my teeth.
We made outings like good vacationers do 
To Chinatown for highlighter pink dragonfruit
To a local farm stand for starfruit with a song
Like a raspberry catching the crest of a sunset.
And to the pineapple plantation where the fruit
Rises like trophies out of a vast plain of thorns.
We picked guavas in a baking crater and ate them
Dripping juice on the gearshift in the front seat.
We found one wild lilikoi, plump and dangling from
Vines tangled with lipstick, wild fuchsia blooms.
That night when we sawed it open at the table
And passed around sips of the jellied seeds
They told us about a friend's newborn daughter
Improbably named after the passionate little fruit.
On the last morning of our visit, hustling for the plane
We ate breakfast together standing in the kitchen
Scooping up avocado flesh with spoons
And then hurling dripping mango into our mouths.
Desperate to eat up paradise before our flight.
We drove out of their bouncing lane and
Saw them framed by an enormous santol tree
Wrapping his arms around them in the sun.

Our host today for Poetry Friday is Amy over at The Poem Farm. Please drop by and savor some of the other contributions if you find yourself sitting with a mug of tea on Saturday morning in a quiet hour. A little poetry does a body good.

Have a beautiful weekend!

Poetry Friday: A Hedge Poem

Happy Poetry Friday everyone! Today I'm writing about a task I'm mostly not really doing these days but more fantasizing about. Our hedge desperately needs a good buzz and I am normally the woman for the job but at the moment the thought of expending all that energy is ultra-daunting and so it stands there in rabid neglect getting hairier by the hour. At least I can write about how it feels to trim it all up nicely, right?

Sometime soon I will take a good hack at it. Although "soon" may not actually come until about July. Boo! I am seriously considering a landscaping company taking a one-off drive-by at my house just to whack it into shape once before spring ends and I go crazy looking at it.

Clipping The Hedge

The vibrant hedge needs haircuts
Just as well as my crop of sons.
It has to be kept within bounds,
Snipping off the clouds of wagging
Shoots that hang down over its face
It will lose itself altogether if allowed
Bulging inappropriately in
Front of the whole neighborhood.
I grind the big shears a pass or two
Warming up the jaws before bites.
With my head on the side I chop
First, the few, high snips to level out
The leafy green table-top above.
Then I advance with my weapon
A cheek pressed against the wall
My sword arm deftly slicing off
The extra limbs and stray parts
As the flanks appear again, decently
A rain of tender stems and leaf bits
Sifts foot-ward leaving a bright,
Lush runner down the driveway.
Sticky green juice edges the blade lips
As they snip hungrily along the wall.
Sometimes I reach a hand up
To feather the cut edges of the hedge
As though it were my husband's hair
Knocking loose the bits of snipped green
Tenderly, brushing it off a brow or a cheek.
As a final touch I must squint down
The line of the shorn wall, my nose nestled
In the bright smell of chloryphyll
Sighting out any stray, missed bit
And when I finally have it perfect
Inhale the bright scent and run an arm
Down the fluttering length of green on my
Way to the garage for my favorite rake.


 Our Poetry Friday host this week is TeacherDance. Click your way over and have another helping or two of poetry to send you off into the weekend.

Until Monday, Friends....until Monday....

Poetry Friday: A Botany Poem

I have been soaking in Amy Merrick's stunning blog An Apple A Day whenever I get a spare minute. Between that, spring being present and spring cleaning addling my brain a bit my thoughts have become quite blossom-soaked. Why fight it? Spring wants to be center-stage...so let her.

Flowers on Dancing Woman (Photo credit: TheArches)

My poem today is all about this very favorite season of mine...and maybe explains a bit of the madness we all feel suddenly at this time of year. May she ever shake her blossomy mane on my street....

Sunlit leaves in spring with and without backlight (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Once A Sensualist Dame...

Spring is doing her passionate tarentella
All down our block and the next one too
Pursing her bold red tulips and fiercely
Kicking up chartruese, grassy spears.
She shakes her tinkling forsythia mane
And drops rings of daffodil at every door.
She lays herself a rosy, blossom rug on
The corner under the lush magnolia tree.
Where she blows a flirty kiss of pear petal
Confetti after every oblivious, passing car.
She winks a forget-me-not eye in each yard,
Reaches her long, leaf-tipped limbs skyward
And performs a saucy, hosta-fringed hip-roll
That always leaves my old house open-doored
Lolling dusty rugs from every window.

Wall painting from Stabiae: Flora with the cornucopia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You can find the other Poetry Friday participants contributions over at Book Talk, today's host blog. Feel free to chip in with your own additions too! Participation is open to all....just link up and join the throng.

Poetry Friday: Married Love

Happy Poetry Friday one and all! I hope you've survived this chilly week in style and are launching into a weekend that will treat you well. I am a walking stereotype, the biggest thing I'm looking forward to is a grocery shopping trip to fortify the house with all my food cravings. Heh. That's what you get when a pregnant woman tells you about her inner life.

Image by Jennuine Captures via Flickr

Sharing a love poem today. This is only the second one I've ever written and although I aspire to emit bodies of amorous verse it doesn't come easily to me. I am very wary of mush and trite sentiment and also of untruth both of which seem more icky than sweet to me.

 Carving Our Initials

Here in our tenth year of marriage, Love has arrived

Gently swooping in to roost in the dormer over our heads.

It came when we traded totems, I saw you let go of your

Iron plans and glinting thoughts to consider and hold mine,

Smooth in my hands like beach stones, well worn and loved.

I have seen you open your mind like a creaking Dutch door,

Allowed it to sag agape, not closing out the interior glimpse.

You have seen me halved like a avocado, showing you my

Damp pit, and you have looked, open eyed on my green center.

Love has been born in our mutual loss and in the tender

Hope that grows up like a bright shoot pressed between

Two people feeling powerless in each others arms.

If you would like to sample the other contributions for this week's Poetry Friday celebration, click over to Wild Rose Reader where our host Elaine is compiling a list of participating bloggers.

Poetry Friday: Cookie Season Verse

Happy Poetry Friday everybody! It's been an age since I celebrated, eh? I have been feeling poem-dry and a little intimidated, plus Friday has a way of casting me deep into "who cares anymore!" mode. Heh heh. Ah the weekend, consumer of my motivation.

I am starting to think about New Years Resolutions and all the they entail, the idea of kicking your own butt back into shape and getting back on all the horses that bucked you recently. So, yeah...I'm back poets and poetry lovers. Poetry Friday must not be ditched. I have to be strong and keep at it. Sometimes I will just write crap. This is life. But keeping on and still writing is the the key to ever turning out good stuff. In the next couple of weeks I hope to compile and number all the poetry I've written this year as a result of this project and if that's not motivation, I don't know what is! Hooray for having output!

I am neck-deep in cookie baking right now, dough and flour from floor to ceiling, I swear it! So, it is time to do some cookie poetry. I bake a lot of cookies during the holidays. It is one of the strange projects I have invented for myself which admittedly creates a lot of work but also gives me a huge amount of satisfaction. A thinks I'm insane. I might be insane but I do bake anyway. :) I bake about 20 different varieties every year and every November I sit down and analyze the list from last year and cross out cookies that were just "meh" instead of amazing and add back anything from previous years that is getting a lot of fond remembering and then I go trolling for new recipes to add. This year I decided to make baklava, something I've made and enjoyed before but never at Christmas.... and then a poem came with it.

Baklava in Advent

I  wrote "baklava" down on the cookie list
It sounded strange but delicious to me,
Sandwiched between the gingerbread men
And sugar cookies iced with sprinkles.
I brush butter, sprinkle spiced nuts and
Gently coax the butterfly wing dough
Into softly fluted layers, rich with scent.
I preheat the oven and remember visiting
The sun-baked land of the Christmas Child.
I remember the heavy pressing heat in Galilee,
Arid country shattered and dusty like pastry.
There was a fervent squawking of hawkers
Selling whatnots in the streets of Jerusalem,
Over-laced with honey and spices drifting up
From the tented market stalls below our hotel.
I slide the finished pan into the waves of heat
Squinting to see through the invisible billows.
And upstairs, amid the squawking of my children
I address a Christmas card to my cousin in Israel
And wonder to myself, how much postage
It will require to send our family photo to that
Exotic port, home of honey and warmed spices,
Birth place of my baklava and my God.


Please do realize that I am in no way asserting that Israel is the birthplace of baklava, just that The Middle East is. I am no sort of expert on the origin of foods and this particular one is a source of great contention among peoples of various Cradle of Civilization nations.

Have a poem you want to share, either one you wrote or one you admire that another author created? You can go share too but posting a link in the comments of today's host for Poetry Friday: Robyn Hood. Happy weekend everyone!