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Posts Tagged ‘wine’

One with Notes of Cherry

untouched for a month
empty wineglasses dream
of toasting her return

*

Dear Friends, 

This very small poem celebrates my mom’s birthday! A quick update–she has been in skilled nursing for a couple weeks now, and it looks as if she can go home in another week or so. What a long, curve-ball-ish, difficult path. I so appreciate all your thoughts and prayers for her and for me as she navigated the 
ICU and hospital … 

Also, this poem is a very small nod to some fun news … I have several times submitted to the Judd’s Hill Poetry contest, which caught my eye back in 2016 because the prize is a double magnum of cab! And the contest is for poems written about wine. This year, I won! With a poem about mom’s wine glasses … You can read about the amazing vineyard (I am so moved by their values and how they interact with their community) and the wine poetry contest here, and read the winners from the last many years … I don’t think my poem is up yet, but here it is, below, with a smile for mom. Happy Birthday, Mom!!! I have never been so glad you are having a birthday!! 

While Unpacking Giant Wine Goblets


At first, I wish my mother
would consider giving them away—
her new apartment is shy on cupboard space.
How many wine glasses do you need?
I ask, trying to sound reasonable.
She responds by saying,
But they’re for red wine,
as if that explains it—
as if of course, she needs eight
beautiful globe-shaped glasses
for serving pinot noir and merlot.
And they’re so hard to find
in this exact shape, she adds,
clearly pleased with these glasses
she has transferred
from home to home to home.
And so, I think, of course,
she needs these glasses
round as grapefruits, clear
as happiness. I imagine her
sipping a fruity red with easy-drinking
tannins and a super-soft finish.
I imagine the smile on her face
as she sips from the larger goblet
designed so the wine can contact
more air and thus open up
so its cherry and raspberry notes
shine through. I imagine the smile
on her face—and I slide
the glasses onto the shelf
and move on to the china,
the measuring cups, the spoons.

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            with thanks to Rae
 
 
Inside the glass bottle,
the wine from Sangiovese grapes—
aged in oak barrels for three years—
continues to age,
losing its youthful fruitiness,
becoming more heady,
more sour cherry, more rose.
A glass of such wine is like
a drinkable love letter to change.
So when the sommelier’s wife
gifts me a vintage from the year
my son was born,
I taste more than raspberry,
dried flowers, coconut and tobacco.
I taste deep red.
I taste rolling down grassy hills
and painting our faces with mud.
I taste sleepless nights and midnight fears.
Homework at the table.
Camping in the desert.
The vinosity of devotion.
Late summer swims in the pond.
The glass empty long before
I wish it were done.

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One Lingering


 
 
a year later, still savoring
the tingling silky aftertaste of eternity
I sipped in a dream

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Kalsarikännit

            Finnish: The feeling when you are going to get drunk home alone in your underwear—with no intention of going out. (pronounced CAHL-sahr-ree-CAN-neet)



Let’s say a woman worked in the garden all day
pulling up old kale and bolted chard and harvesting
potatoes and garlic and onions, and let’s say
her whole evening plan is to stay home
and shower and not get dressed,
and sip on a glass of wine, or whiskey
until she is sweetly light-headed,
well, wouldn’t it be lovely if there were a word
to describe her aspirations? A word
she could write in her calendar to be sure
no other loud plans swooped in. A word
she could say if her friends called and asked
what was happening tonight. And if
no one should call, she could say it to herself
for the joy of saying it—Kalsarikännit—
as she toasted the air, clinking her glass
against all that isn’t there.
And the wind on her skin, so brisk.
And the wine, so heady, so dry.

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Not everything broken
need be fixed.
Even the loveliest cup,
the one that seemed perfection,
the one that fit
just right in the hand
and held the favorite wine,
even that cup is only a cup,
and, being fashioned
out of breakable clay,
it was, we could say,
made to be broken.
The fact it was fragile
was always a part of its value.
In shattered fragments,
the cup is no less
treasured—perhaps
even more treasured now
that its wholeness
isn’t taken for granted.
There are some who
would throw the pieces away.
There are some who
would meet them with
glue or even with gold
in an effort to repair.
But there are some
who will cherish what is broken,
hold it even more tenderly now,
trusting its use—
though different—
is no less valuable.
Trusting a fragment
is sometimes more than enough.
Trusting in every end
is a beginning,
and we might now
sip our wine
straight from the source.


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At first, I wish my mother
would consider giving them away—
her new apartment is shy on cupboard space.
How many wine glasses do you need?
I ask, trying to sound reasonable.
She responds by saying,
But they’re for red wine,
as if that explains it—
as if of course, she needs eight
beautiful globe-shaped glasses
for serving pinot noir and merlot.
And they’re so hard to find
in this exact shape, she adds,
clearly pleased with these glasses
she has transferred
from home to home to home.
And so, I think, of course,
she needs these glasses
round as grapefruits, clear
as happiness. I imagine her
sipping a fruity red with easy-drinking
tannins and a super-soft finish.
I imagine the smile on her face
as she sips from the larger goblet
designed so the wine can contact
more air and thus open up
so its cherry and raspberry notes
shine through. I imagine the smile
on her face—and I slide
the glasses onto the shelf
and move on to the china,
the measuring cups, the spoons.

Read Full Post »

Apricot Wine


for Dave


From this glass of chilled apricot wine,
bottled just days ago,
I drink the long days of summers past,
a potent sweetness that comes
only with time. I drink the memory
of the hands that harvested the fruit,
the memory of patience,
memory of soft rain and deep blue.

If I could bottle this day,
would there be enough sweetness in it
to make a wine I could savor?
Were there enough moments
when I fell in love with the world?
A laugh with a friend, scent of pine needles,
cold shower on hot skin,
and this glass of apricot wine.

Could I learn, as this wine has,
how to let goodness develop,
how to invite the taste of something wonderful
that wasn’t originally here?
In this wine, hints of pineapple, lemon,
plum. By what magic do they appear?
Oh world, teach me that patience.
Teach me to trust in time, to trust
in magic I don’t understand,
to improve with age, like apricot wine.

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Aging


The wine in the glass

remembers the long days in darkness

how it couldn’t breathe,

how it lost its scent of grape

and became more grapefruit,

more green pepper, more grass.

How it lost its harsh taste,

lost its astringence, and became

rounder, more smooth, more

wine. I, too, am changing

in these long days.

I, too, am converting what I’ve known

into what I will be.

I, too, am becoming something

I almost don’t recognize—

heady with transformation,

yet tethered by memory

of what it was like

to feel trapped,

what it was like

to steep in that darkness,

to have to learn to trust

whatever came next.

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Cheers, Friend

The day bubbles up
like champagne, a burst
of effervescence, bright rush
of intoxication, a golden
stream of goodness—
and I, walking the trail
with my friend, find
I’m tipsy on laughter
and old love, forgetting
for the moment life might
be any other way—
remembering only
celebration, indulgence,
scent of white flowers,
a sparkling that lingers,
the glass somehow
always, sweet miracle,
so full.

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Let’s Get Drunk

 

 

 

The Sufis had it right—

the day is a glass of wine.

It matters not what kind

of vessel it’s poured into—

chipped clay or crystal

or wooden cup. There

is divinity in it regardless—

the chance to dance alongside

the rational, logical self

and fall in love. It brings

the potential for bliss,

for persuasiveness, for imagination,

for spontaneous and riotous

laughter. And you, perhaps,

like I, are beginning to realize

just how dry the mouth,

just how thirsty the heart.

 

 

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