The Poetics of Food

Lisa is hosting Poetics Tuesday over at dVerse Poets pub and she has asked for a poem about food. Fall and food an inextricably linked for me. Food and memories, I can still smell the pies baking. I wonder sometimes, how will a generation brought up on store bought confections ever know the pure bliss of the smelling the first pumpkin pie of day, fresh from the oven, still jiggily as jello, cooling near the window.

Grandma’s Pumpkins

All through the month of October,
the leaves turned bright colors
and merrily danced on the winds
like the way I learned to dance
with my tiny feet on top of Daddy’s

Grandma’s kitchen was filled
with harvest smells and warmth
fog from the cook pots steaming
the windows where I drew hearts
leaves and jack-o-lanterns

Pumpkins graced the table nightly
in some form or another
roasted and drizzled with oil
mashed with rich butter
or baked into elegant pies

The pies were my favorite
delicate things they were,
edges with dough shaped like leaves
the top dark brown at the center
radiating out into delicate umber edges

The largest from the patch
were carved on Halloween
into happy faces, filled with candlelight
to keep unfriendly spirits at bay
silent sentries guard us through the night

Grandmother and her kitchen are gone now
I watch my grandchildren carve the pumpkins
that will stand guard over our homes this night
the kitchen is redolent with steam and smells
of cinnamon and butter, and Grandma’s pumpkins

Til next time ~Peace ~JPP