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Posts Tagged ‘recipe’

Family Recipe

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 25, 2022| 7 Comments »




All day, I search for it,
the secret ingredient—
something my father
believed in. He always
made stuffing
with something extra,
something special,
then made us guess
what the secret was.
All day, I notice
what goes into a day—
a total of 86,400 seconds,
and in every second
a choice of how
we will meet that second.
If the day is stuffing,
then this day has
some unusual ingredients:
a couple dozen folks
in swimsuits on the sidewalk,
one woman with a dying parrot
she has tucked in her sweater,
a whole garden full of lemon trees,
one ripe hour alone
in the sunshine on a rooftop,
a generous measure of laughter
as my daughter and husband and I
climb a near-vertical hill,
and bittersweet tears
as I think of Dad
and his love of secret ingredients.
All day, the world
shows off its flavors.
All day, I revel in the recipe,
this extraordinary day,
something that can never
be made the same way again.

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Lying on the Couch, Rubbing Each Other’s Feet

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 7, 2018| 4 Comments »

 

Mom, just relax. Let me take you to a place where there are no bunions, no bruises, no violence, no Donald Trumps, no unhappy thoughts.

            —Vivian Trommer, 10

 

 

Start with the scent of chanterelle cream sauce

still lingering from dinner. Throw in a few stars—

you can’t see them, but you know they are there.

 

Add a tickle. A giggle. A kitten-ish squeal.

Rub tenderly. Then hard. Then forget for a while

to rub. Add a hum, and the dark that can’t enter

 

the room. Add moon. And cocoon. An impending

soon. And the sound of the river never ending.

An inkling of joy. A hunch of perfect. A hint

 

of this can’t last. Choose that. Distill to precisely

this moment. Any sorrow or pain

that might wish to rise, it is only a background

 

flavor that shows up how sweet this magic,

how sometimes the best recipe is the one

that uses exactly what we have on hand.

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