Posted in Uncategorized, tagged becoming, gardening, onion, patience on April 25, 2021| 2 Comments »
While I did not fix
the thing I most
wish to fix, and I
did not do
the most important
thing on my list,
and I did not save
anyone, and I did
not solve the world’s
problems, I did
plant the onion sets
in the garden,
pressed my fingers
into the dry earth,
knew myself as
a thin dry start.
Oh patience, good
self. This slow
and quiet growing,
this, too, is
what you are
here to do.
published in ONE ART: A journal of poetry
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged food, loss, ode, onion on February 5, 2021| 3 Comments »
And there you were not
on the shelf with your shiny red skin,
and there you were not in the pan
in thin pink rings filling the air,
and there you were not
in the sauce, that warm underlayer
that grounds the bright tomato—
all night I missed you.
All night, the red wine kept asking,
Where is it? Where is it?
All night, I thought of how
what is missing is sometimes
most here.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged crying, ode, onion, tears on November 17, 2020| 4 Comments »
You hide in the flesh of onions
the way hope hides in certain Superbowl commercials.
It’s not that I don’t expect you,
so why does it feel like an ambush when you,
chemical irritant released into air,
bring tears to my eyes and I stand there
at the kitchen counter weeping
over the cutting board,
weeping as if a lover died,
as if listening to cello,
as if I realize again there is so much suffering
in the world I cannot change.
You remind me it’s natural to cry—
that waterworks are hardwired into the eyes.
You teach me sometimes what nourishes us
also burns.
There are times when I’ve wondered
why we aren’t all weeping—
weeping for the lack of connection,
weeping for children who hunger,
weeping for love between friends
and the red of maple leaves—
it’s as if you give us permission,
prepare the pathways,
so that when at last we succumb
to our glorious humanity
we don’t try to hide it,
we don’t act as if it’s a problem,
we just stand in the center of the room
and let those hot tears
fall down our cheeks,
the salt sharp and hot on our tongues.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cooking, friendship, missing, nostalgia, onion, poem, poetry on July 3, 2012| 6 Comments »
Using the Last Bit of Red Onion Left by Rachel
Lost for weeks in the corner of the crisper drawer,
it appears just in time to save the carrot soup.
One large hunk of red onion, partially used, still good.
I get nostalgic, remembering how Rachel, gone for three weeks,
served it with eggs, and though I didn’t eat them
I remember how delicious the kitchen smelled then.
It is her hand that chose it, her hand that sliced the rings.
I laugh at my own nostalgia. But I miss her, the all of her,
the giggling on the couch with her, the singing in the car,
cayenne and hot chocolate late night, poems, wine.
And slicing the onion, thinking about how Rachel she is,
it is right somehow that I should start to cry.